


Case I: A Study in Scarlet

by mt_reade



Series: The Completed Case Files of Holmes and Watson [1]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Detectives, BBC Sherlock - Freeform, Best Friends, Detectives, Logan as Sherlock, M/M, Murder Mystery, Partners in Crime, Partnership, Sherlock AU, Virgil as Watson, Who play the other characters? You'll see, analogical - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-11
Updated: 2020-05-11
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:21:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 26
Words: 35,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24122776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mt_reade/pseuds/mt_reade
Summary: THE COMPLETED CASE FILES OF HOLMES AND WATSONCase I: A Study in Scarlet---A BBC Sherlock A.U. of the Sanders Sides!A war hero, invalidated home from Afghanistan after serving as an army doctor, meets a strange but charismatic genius who is looking for a flatmate. Set in London, seven years ago, and Dr. Watson and Detective Holmes are meeting for the first time. A string of impossible serial suicides has the police department baffled, and only one man can help. But, he might need a friend to help him out. Maybe.---Based on the BBC television series "Sherlock", with the use of some of the characters from the Sanders Sides series by Thomas Sanders and his team and a sprinkle of some of my own characters!
Relationships: Anxiety | Virgil Sanders & Logic | Logan Sanders, Anxiety | Virgil Sanders/Logic | Logan Sanders
Series: The Completed Case Files of Holmes and Watson [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1740550
Comments: 54
Kudos: 35





	1. A Quick Disclaimer

**_Hello, all! My name is Tana, or mt_reade, and I'm the author of this book!_ **

**_I wasn't actually going to say anything directly to you all here, but I felt like I needed to put a bit of a disclaimer before we get into this story._ **

**_Sherlock Holmes is a very popular character, and he's actually already had influence in the Sanders Sides series, as some of you may know. So, before we get started, I just wanted to say that this is my personal AU, and you may notice that some things have been changed from the way that Thomas did it._ **

**_You're welcome to feel however you want, and maybe if you'd written this story, you'd have chosen different characters to play different roles, or changed different parts of the plot. And that's perfectly fine! I'm so so okay with that._ **

**_I do really think that you all will enjoy it, and I wrote and distributed the characters and story as genuinely as I could. Please just be respectful and understanding when going forward into this story. That's all I ask, thank you so much!_ **

**_With that out of the way, I'm so incredibly excited to get to share this story with you!_ **

**_One more thing before we get into it, I'd like to suggest that you read every part of this book, and not skip any of it. There might be lore hidden in places you don't expect. ;)_ **

**_Okay, okay, I'm done talking. Off you go. I hope you enjoy!_ **

**_With love, Tana (@MT_Reade)_ **


	2. Foreword

This is the first instalment in an ongoing research project into the intersecting lives of consulting detective [omitted], and his companion [omitted]. Two men whose whereabouts and state are unknown, after their disappearance two years ago.

Documentation of their case work and life together has been deemed the most effective method of trying to locate them, for reasons that I myself have not been disclosed.

I have been tasked by the authorities to create a working manuscript of the events that have taken place in and around [omitted]. and its tenants as early as records can be found, and submit them to the police.

I am keeping my own copy of the biography here, as a part of my own personal portfolio. Perhaps one day I will publish them, when the case is closed.

This story has been compiled using archived posts from the ongoing blog of [omitted], which stopped being updated as of August 21st, two years ago. Other resources include, recounts of events from those connected to the men in question, such as [omitted], [omitted], [omitted], [omitted], [omitted], and others. 

This recount has been formatted as a narrative, in order to best capture the emotional and psychological positions of those involved with this case.

This work has been reviewed carefully by a human-profiler and various editing authors to ensure as close to deduced realism as possible. But, please proceed with the forewarned knowledge that sections of this recount are speculative, or founded upon situational evidence.

Any knowledge surrounding this case that is believed to be relevant and helpful into this ongoing investigation may be submitted as an anonymous call to your local police department. Or, you can reach out to me directly at [omitted], or [omitted] and I can get you in touch with [omitted].

This instalment details the unfoldings of the first documented case on [omitted]'s personal blog, entitled: "A Study in Scarlet".

 **This case concerns the following triggering topics:** death, murder, inspection and close-up interaction with a corpse, PTSD, depression, guns and other weapons, drug mention, suicide mention, as well as cursing and foul language. If any of the above warnings may cause you discomfort or malaise, **please proceed with caution**. If at any point during the reading of this case, you experience any negative stimuli or response to the situations documented, please **do not** feel obligated to continue, or finish reading, this book. It is important that all of those reading stay safe, and look after themselves first.

All the best,  
[omitted]

Let us begin.


	3. One

A blizzard of cuts from various news reports, fast, just snatched words and phrases as if plucked singularly from a memory jar.

_"Afghanistan--"_

_"British troops involved in a--"_

_"Four dead, two injured--"_

There is a flash of an image. A dirt pathway, or maybe it is a road. It's wide and worn and wobbling unstably through blurry vision as heavy boots hammer hard on the compact path. The image is chaotic, and loud, if a visual ever could be. There is a crashed jeep, belching smoke from a deep ditch just adjacent to the roadway. There's the sound of gunfire, loud and piercing and resonant. There are men dressed head to toe in camouflage and belts stocked with weaponry, along with helmets that are almost as heavy as their footwear. Soldiers.

There is a voice yelling. Yelling. Yelling... something. Something indiscernible from this distance, or from under this helmet. With immense focus, the voice becomes more precise, sounds morphing into something that's almost words. Almost understandable.

Again and again it yells. He yells.

"HAUGH-SUNG!"

_"Tonight on your local broadcast, we've received an update--"_

_"Increased hostilities over the last few weeks--"_

_"Until relatives have been informed--"_

"YACHT-SON!"

_"Good evening everyone, I'm Julie Chen from CNN broadcasting--"_

_"Two more have died in the worst outbreak of violence--"_

_"Said his thoughts were with the victims families--"_

"WATSON!"

\---

A pair of dark brown eyes snap open. Wider.

There's a man, startled awake, lying on his back, sweating in his bed. A single bed, small, and covered with sheets that were slightly scratchy, but simple and soft enough. The bed is tucked into the corner of the dullest, plainest room. The walls are a muted green, the carpet a light grey; and all of the furnishing, which consists of a computer desk, a bedside table, a makeshift kitchen, a small three-drawer dresser, and the bed frame itself, are all made of unstained birch wood.

The man sits up, and runs a hand through messy brown hair, calming himself. He sits with his head in his hands for a moment, legs outstretched on the mattress, as he lets his breathing slowly return to normal. He runs his hands over his face, and lightly smacks each side of it to help wake himself up. He blinks bleary eyes into focus.

He's in his late twenties, with a soft jawline and short stature. He is a little heavyset, but not unhealthily so. He is actually in remarkable shape considering the lack of physical activity he's been doing lately. There are light wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, etched in with the pencil marks left by the many happy smiles that had once been drawn across his face. But, he is weathered. He'd been through his share of hardships, and seen his share of bad things.

He pulls back his covers, and carefully swings his legs over the side of the bed, and reaches clumsily toward his nightstand. Leaning against it, hooked over the knob on the top drawer, is a stiff wooden walking cane. It's new-ish, no older than a year or so, but has been worn so that the rubber base is roughened and malleable, limp in comparison with the stark wooden staff. He stands, pressing his weight onto the handle. He makes his way over to the kitchen countertop, left foot dragging a bit, to put on the kettle for his morning coffee. Simple and warm, with a little too much sugar, just how he likes it.

Once he has dropped his teaspoon into the sink with a clatter, and holds a small china mug in his hand, he helps himself over to his dresser. The coffee is set gently on it with a slightly trembling left hand, and he braces himself on the edge of the surface, closing his eyes for a moment, and trying to shake himself of the wisps of nightmare that cling to the corners of his mind like cobwebs. An uneven breath is released, and he opens his eyes. He tugs open the middle drawer, and sees his shirts all lined up below him, neatly folded and stacked in a row of even piles. He didn't used to be like this. He used to be spontaneous, with a light in his eyes and rip in his jeans. He used to be messy and disorganized, and he didn't care. He used to have more important, interesting things to be doing than folding his laundry.

He abandons the prospect of getting dressed, in favour of dropping himself in front of his laptop computer, which sits open and waiting on his desk. He sets his cane against the wall, almost glaring at it, before turning his attention to the computer screen. He types in his password without thinking. Honestly, at this point, if you were to ask him, he wouldn't even be able to tell you what the passcode was. It was just second nature, muscle memory, thoughtless.

The laptop screen shifts, unlocking to reveal a webpage. One with a light blue background, and bold black bold lettering across the top:

" _The Personal Blog of Dr. Virgil A. Watson._ "

His eyes pan down to an empty screen, with the exception of a little text box, with the encouraging note of "write your first post". The cursor hovers over it, winking away, expectant.

Dr. Virgil Watson lets out a long sigh, and closes the page.

\---

"How's your blog going?" Ella Picani, Virgil's therapist, asks gently. They are sitting across from each other in identical burgundy armchairs. Ella's notepad is out, her fountain pen hovering over the page, at the end of an already quickly growing list.

Virgil sits stiffly in his seat, out of place in the environment that is trying so hard to be relaxed and welcoming.

"Oh, um... fine." He says, "Good, very good."

Ella looks at him, knowingly. "You haven't written a word, have you?"

There's a silence, and Ella shakes her head a little as she scribbles something in her notebook.

"You just wrote that I still have trust issues." Virgil says. "How did you get that idea?"

Ella looks up over the rim of her silver glasses. "Well, for one, you read my writing upside down."

Virgil drops back in his chair, covering his face with his hands. These sessions were supposed to be helping, or doing _something_ at the very least. But, his life seems just as grey, and his heart just as hardened as it had been three months ago.

"Virgil," Ella speaks again, her voice softer now. Gentler. "You're an army doctor. It's going to take you a while to adjust to civilian life. Writing a blog about everything that happens to you, will honestly help you. Please just trust me."

Virgil lifts his face out of his hands, and he looks at her bleakly.

"Nothing happens to me."


	4. Two

The train station is busy, swarming even. It is loud and crowded, full of bustling businessmen and women brushing by at a blistering pace in every direction. One such businessman, Jeffrey Patterson, pushes his way toward the stairs, a black cell-phone pressed to his ear. He climbs up toward the exit, shouting into the receiver in order to be heard over the white noise of the passerbyers.

"I thought you loved me!"

There is light laughter on the other end of the line, which is much quieter than his own. "I do, Jeff. I do." Helen assures him. "Just not enough to get dressed just to come pick you up, only to come straight back home again."

"Aw, c'mon darling--!"

"No!" She giggles. "Just get a cab."

"I never get cabs!" Jeffrey protests, as he steps out onto the sidewalk at the entrance of the station, and hikes his bag higher up on his shoulder.

"Maybe it's time to start." Helen says. "Besides, I can get ready for something... fun while I'm waiting for you."

Jeffrey smirks. "Or... you can come get me, and we can get started right away?"

Helen's laugh was boisterous. "Get a cab!" She hangs up with a click.

Now _that's_ good news. Well, Jeffrey all but runs down the street.

\---

The office isn't glamorous. Perhaps even abandoned. It's almost empty, with nothing but an old oak conference table standing in the center of the room. On one side of it, the side furthest from the door, sits Jeffrey Patterson. He is staring down at something, a little pill bottle that is sitting on the table before him. His lips are drawn tight, and he seems to brace himself, ready himself.

He reaches for the pill bottle. His hands are shaking terribly, so violently that he can barely manage to unscrew the cap.

Now, he's staring at a singular pill that sits in the palm of his hand. It's red and white, like a gelcap that's filled with granular substance. He's disbelieving, he can't quite grasp that he's really going to do this.

He screws his eyes shut, and slams the pill back into his mouth. He bites down on it.

For a moment there is nothing. No sound, no movement, no disturbance. But, then a head drops with a smack to a table, and for Jeffrey Patterson the nothing lasts for much longer than a moment. For Jeffrey, there is nothing. Nothing at all, ever again.

\---

Two young men, in their late teenage years, are running down the darkened street through a streaming downpour of nighttime rain. The water is coming down in sheets, and there are little streams of water flowing through the gutter and down into the drainpipe ahead. Gary has an umbrella clasped tightly in his hands, but Jimmy just has the collar of his coat pulled up over his head.

A taxi passes by, and Gary tries to flag it over, but it doesn't even slow down. Water sprays up from the pavement, drenching the pant legs of Jimmy, who stands the closest to the roadway.

"Bloody hell!" Jimmy exclaimes, shaking his leg in a fruitless attempt to dry it off somewhat. He starts to shout after the cab, but Gary puts a hand on his shoulder.

"He probably just didn't see us through this rain." He said, reassuringly. "We'll just walk, it's not that far, anyway."

Jimmy hesitates to a halt, looking around through the downpour. "Alright, fine. But I'm running back for an umbrella. I'll be two minutes." He says, turning back up the sidewalk.

"What? Just share mine." Gary offers.

"Two minutes!" Jimmy calls, already walking away.

"It's not gay, sharing!" Gary yells after him. But all he gets is a dismissive wave over Jimmy's shoulder as he stalks away.

Minutes pass, and Gary is cold and miserable standing here. He checks his watch. _Where is he?_

\---

There's a ring at the door, and a middle-aged woman opens it to reveal Gary, standing soaked on the step. The rain is still pouring, but the night is less young now.

"Hey Mrs. A, just wondering where Jimmy is?" Gary asks.

Jimmy's mother frowns. "I thought that he was with you?"

Gary shakes his head. "He came back for an umbrella."

"No, he didn't."

\---

There's a long series of empty, indoor tennis courts. The sports centre is long closed, but there was still an occupant. Jimmy sits crouched on the floor, leaning against the wall of the furthest tennis court. He's still wet from the rain, shivering, but not just from the cold.

There's something gripped in his shaking hand. He raises it to look at it with wide eyes.

A pill bottle. Full of about half a dozen red and white pills.

He readies himself, and starts to undo the top.

\---

The room is packed, filled with people dancing and mingling on the dance floor. Too many of them crammed between the banner-covered walls, banners that read: "Happy Birthday Beth."

Two young men are sitting below a picture of the woman in question, the one bearing the plaque "Junior Minister for Transport." The two men are Beth's assistants, watching the party from the sidelines with hardly concealed disdain.

"She still dancing?" One asked.

"If you can call it that."

The first leans in, and lowers his voice. "Did you get her car keys off her?"

The second man, wearing dark clothing and a smirk, lifts up a set of keys that dangle dangerously off the end of a finger. "Took 'em out of her bag."

The first assistant looks around, pleased, looking for his boss. He frowns when he can't spot her annoyingly large and hard-to-miss head of curls in the crowd. "Hey man, can you see her?"

The other frowns, and surveys the room. He sits up, suddenly alert. "Where is she?"

\---

Beth Davenport is seated at a desk in a torch-lit workman's portacabin. Her face is tear-streaked, and she's breathing hard. Beyond her, through a window, there's a construction site, and traffic passing by.

She's almost sobbing.

"Oh god." She stammers. "Oh god, oh god."

The headlights from a passing car reflect blindingly off of the glass of the little pill bottle sitting on the table in front of her.

There's a groan of a chair giving way, and the thud of a limp physique dropping to the floor.


	5. Three

Cameras are flashing. There's a crush of journalists, all jostling and restless in their seats in front of a podium. Two people stand behind it, eyes averted from the insistent strobes of the cameras. 

Detective Inspector Remy Lestrade is the one directly behind the podium, his dislike of events like this heavily pouring into his facial expression. He takes a deep breath, and looks up at the gathering of broadcasters, hoping that his concealer has well-enough hidden the swelling of purple sleeplessness that blooms below his tired eyes. He doesn't have the energy or the intake of caffeine to deal with this today.

"The body of Beth Davenport, Junior Minister for Transport, was found late last night on a building site in Greater London." He says, and already the journalists begin to try to speak over him. He raises his voice a little, in effort to keep a cap on it. "Preliminary investigations suggest that this was, unfortunately, a suicide." He pauses, to sort out his words carefully. His diction and vocabulary are suffering a bit this morning. "We are aware that this suicide closely resembles those of Jeffrey Patterson and James Almore. In the light of this, these incidents are now being treated as linked."

The second man, who is standing a bit behind and to the side of Remy, steps forward, pulling the microphone to face him. "The DI will take your questions now. Please do your best to keep orderly." Sergeant Roman Anderson's voice is amplified throughout the room, but is quickly drowned out by a tidal wave of questions being shouted from the carnivorous reporters below.

Amongst the onslaught, one reporter manages to be louder than the others. "Detective Inspector, how can these suicides be linked?"

Remy moves the microphone back towards him, and Roman takes a step back. "They all took the same poison. They were all also found in places they had no reason to be, and none of them had shown any prior indication of--"

"But you can't have serial suicides!" Another journalist interjects.

"Apparently you can." Remy says, swallowing thickly, trying to ignore the way his stomach convulsed, like he was going to be sick.

"These three people, there's nothing that links them?"

"Well, there's no link that we've found yet," He says, "but we're looking for one." He adds hurriedly. "There has to be one."

There's a flurry of writing in notebooks, and another wave of aggressive lense flashes. Then, suddenly, there's a chorus of chirps and beeps, not quite in sync, but almost. It's like every mobile phone in the room received a text at once.

Apparently, that's exactly what happened, because everyone in the room with the exception of Remy pulls their cell phone out of a pocket or purse or equipment bag, including his rookie. Roman clears his throat, and quickly shows his phone screen to the DI. A message from an unknown number, with only one word written in it:

_Wrong._

Roman is quick to act, shouting out to address the crowd. "If you all got texts, please just ignore them."

A reporter looks up, confused. "It just says 'wrong.'"

"Yeah, well... just ignore that." Roman says, "If there are no more questions for Detective Inspector Lestrade, I'm going to bring this session to an end."

But there were more questions, and they surged from the sea of reporters like foam. "If they're suicides, what are you investigating?"

Remy can physically feel the pressure on his shoulders as he struggles to bring this interview back under control. "Like I said, these suicides are clearly linked, this is an unusual situation, and we have our best officers investigating."

Almost immediately, another chorus of rings ripples through the room. The phones are out again, and Remy is confronted with another text message on his rookie's phone.

_Wrong again._

Roman and Remy exchange annoyed and slightly panicked glances.

"It says--"

"We'll take one more question!" Roman shouts, cutting off the reporter.

"Is there any chance these are murders? And if they are, is this the work of a serial killer?"

Remy grips the edge of the podium tightly. "Look, I know that you like writing about those, but these do appear to be suicides, the poison was self administered, not force-fed. We know the difference, I promise." He says through gritted teeth.

"Yes, but if they _are_ murders, how do people keep themselves safe?"

Remy runs a frantic hand through his hair, cracking under the force of his own annoyance. "I dunno, don't commit suicide?"

There's a moment of frantic scribbling, and Remy's eyes blow wide in alarm. "I-I mean... uh... Obviously this is a frightening time for people, but all anyone can do is exercise reasonable precaution. We are all as safe as we... as we want to be."

The room erupts in various ringtones, and the sea of phones surges upward again. One final message is read, as Roman rushes Remy and himself off of the podium.

_WRONG._

\---

Roman follows Remy into his office, absolutely furious. "You have _got_ to stop him from doing that! He's making us look like idiots!"

Remy falls into the seat at his desk, his heartbeat slowing gradually, and his breath escaping as a sigh. "Tell me _how_ he does it, hun, and trust me, I'll stop him."

There's another ring-ding-ding, but this time from the DI's own phone, and no one else's. He pulls it out, and sees a notification:

_(1) New text message._

He unlocks it, and opens up the text.

_You're overlooking things. So simple, really. There were no notes left by any of them. There was no prior sign. Each of them, found in a strange location that means nothing to them, where they've never gone before. Maybe it's just me, but that's not how I'd kill myself._

_-LH_


	6. Four

Virgil pushes open the door to his therapist's office, and hobbles in on his stick and limping leg. He wears his old waterproof boots this morning, as the rain outside had been hammering enough to make a small river out of the streets. This means, though, that his feet are a bit heavier than usual. This normally isn't that big of a problem, and it wouldn't have been now, if it weren't for all of the stairs he had to climb to get up to Dr. Ella Picani's office. Virgil mumbles something indiscernible in greeting, and takes off his hat, hanging it on the coat hanger to the left of the doorway. He shivers a bit as he removes his coat, and blows a bit on each of his hands in turn, the other staying pressed firmly to the handle of his walking cane. Needless to say, he is happy to be here, and wishes at that moment that he had brought money for transit.

"Virgil, hello! You're here early."

Virgil checks his watch, and notes that he's not much earlier than he usually is. He turns around to tell Ella just that, but he is surprised to see a man already in his usual seat. He has light brown hair with highlights and honey eyes to match, hidden a bit behind round glasses. He and Ella both look in Virgil's direction as he looks between them, and there's a suspended moment of silence between the three.

"Um, hi. I'm not... interrupting, am I?" Virgil asks, breaking the silence.

"Oh no, of course not." The man stands, and crosses over to him, tightening his pastel pink tie on the way, and stretching out his hand. "I'm Emile, Ella's brother. And you must be Virgil!"

"Nice to meet you." Virgil shakes his hand politely.

Emile's features were so bright that he almost looked animated, cartoonish. Especially considering that the tie and goofy grin weren't helping matters. It caught Virgil a bit off guard, but not because of the man's flamboyancy. Actually, it was because it was almost like looking in a mirror, a mirror that showed him who he once was. Who he was no longer. Enthusiastic. Light. Happy.

Virgil winces a little as he shifts his weight.

Emile's smile falters. "You okay there, kid?"

"Huh? Oh yeah, just my leg."

"Oh yes, Elle was telling me about that. Thank you for your service."

Virgil stays silent. He never knew how to respond when people told him that. You're welcome? Seems like a weird thing to say. Narcissistic even.

"Emile lives in London, he's just stopping on his way back actually. We're going to go out for lunch afterward. You don't mind if he stays, do you?" Ella asks. "He's dabbled in psychiatry, and I think a second opinion will..."

Virgil stops really listening after that. He instead makes his way over to the armchair, sitting down in it with relief.

"Sure." Virgil says numbly. The man seems nice enough.

"So, Virgil, I've been thinking about what you said the other day. About nothing happening in your life?"

Virgil's breath catches a little in his throat. "And?"

"Well, I think that it's because you haven't been spending much time with anyone else. Human connection plays a vital role in correcting the human psyche. So, I think..." Ella fades off.

"Hm, what?" Virgil asks. "That I should get a roommate?"

"Well, I was going to say make a friend, but I suppose that encaptures the idea."

Virgil shook his head. "I don't think that's going to happen."

"Oh? Why not?"

"Who'd want _me_ for a flatmate?" Virgil asks, quietly. Bitterness seeping like lemon juice into his tone.

There's an amused voice: "You know, you're the second person to say that to me today." It's Emile, who's been quiet up until this point. He chuckles a little.

"What?" Virgil asks.

"Yeah." Emile smiled, almost encouragingly.

Virgil looks between him and his therapist for a moment. He realises the trap that he's fallen into by the smug look on both of their faces.

"Who was the first?"

\---

A slim hand is wrapped around a cool black android, staring at the notification on his phone.

_(7) New text messages_

The owner doesn't have to look to know who they were from. DI Remy Lestrade never seemed able to compile his thoughts into one concise message, always long strings of badgers that annoyed the receiver to no end. The phone is powered off, and his own face is briefly reflected back at him. Clinical, calculating, angular, and long. The phone was flipped over thrice in his hand, and tucked into the pocket of a crisp white lab coat. On the pocket, there is an identification key card pinned to the hem with a small metal clamp. It reads: " _Holmes, Logan - Head of Dissection and Post-Mortem - St. Bartholomew's Scientific and Biological Research Centre."_

"Logan! I've been looking for you!" A voice calls from behind him. He casts a glance over his shoulder briefly, to see his colleague running up the hall as he himself continues toward his labroom.

"Ah, Emile." Logan Holmes says with a curt nod in greeting, as the shorter man with the round glasses and oddly coloured necktie falls into stride with him. Emile's shoulder brushes against Logan's own, well his upper arm, technically. The movement is a little forceful, deliberate.

"So, um... I have something to tell you!" Emile starts, rubbing the back of his neck a bit, and tugging his clipboard tightly against his chest. He waits for a response, but doesn't get one. So he continues. "Well, yesterday you mentioned that--"

"Oh, yes, I remember. The new body's been brought in then, yes?"

Emile paused. "I, well, yes it has. I've brought it to your lab already. But, uh, that's not what I was talking abo--"

"Wonderful. What do we know?"

Emile draws his lips into a tight line, and flushes a bit, letting the matter go for the moment. He begins frantically flipping through the pages attached to the clipboard he's holding, looking for the post-mortem. He moves faster when he hears Logan's impatient sigh from beside him. He winces a bit as he cuts his finger on one of the thicker sheets. Eventually, though, Emile finds what he is looking for, and unclips a loose leaf of paper, and holds it out toward his colleague. "Just in. He's sixty-seven. Used to work here, actually. I knew him." He says as Logan takes the paper from him, and scans over it with scrutinizing grey eyes. "He was actually pretty nice, you know. I-Is something wrong?"

Logan's frowning at the paper. "I need to file a complaint, I swear. They always report on time of death, fingerprints, etcetera. But, they never record any of the _important_ details! It's like the coroners are all incompetent. Didn't they go to medical school?"

"They did. But, um... hey, Logan? Before you go and file that, er, complaint?" Emile says, slowing his pace a little, hoping to get the other to stop.

"Yes?" Logan asks, looking over his shoulder momentarily, jerking his head forward. "And do keep up, Emile."

Emile bites his lip and quickens his stride to catch back up to Logan, who hadn't even paused. Picani clenches his fists, and trains his eyes on the floor in front of him. "See, um, well. I was wondering if maybe, you know, after work--"

At that moment, Logan's phone started to ring. He groaned aloud, and reached into the breast pocket of his lab coat, the one that matches the one that Emile himself is wearing, and checks the caller ID. There's a shaky breath from Emile beside him.

 _"Don't Answer",_ it says.

So Logan doesn't, and simply hangs up, puts his cell phone on silent, and drops it back into his pocket. He refocuses his gaze onto the paper clasped in his hand. "Sorry, what were you saying?"

Emile felt his shoulders tense up, and his mouth was a desert. "I was just wondering, um, if you'd like to have coffee?"

"Oh, yes, thank you. Black with two sugars. I'll be in my lab." Logan says, unfazed. "If you can get one of those cardboard sleeves too for the cup, they usually have them beside the machine upstairs."

"O-Oh, I, um..." Emile fumbles and trips over his words, and Logan continues down the hall without him, his white laboratory jacket billowing around his calves as he stalks down the hall, chucking the post-mortem into a nearby garbage can. Emile's mouth opens and closes like a blubbering fish, and wipes his hands off on his pants. "Okay, no worries." He says, before turning back in the direction of the stairs.


	7. Five

Logan Holmes sits on a stool perpendicular to the lab bench he is stationed at. His work clothes slightly wrinkled, something about staying here all night makes clothes wither. Logan, despite his slightly dishevelled appearance, looks as put-together as ever. His lab coat had been removed at some point in the past few hours, and strewn across the countertop behind him. The sleeves of the coat are stiff, and do not concede to fine motor movement and the precision required for lab work. Logan cranes his neck a bit, tugs his tie loose, and pops the top button of his collared shirt, before pressing his eyes back into the spyglasses of the high-magnification microscope on the lab bench before him.

He stares at the sample beneath the scope, and narrows his eyes. He reaches for the dial on the side of the machine, fumbling to enhance the picture further. The custodian bustles around him silently, not bothering to interrupt his work. It isn't unusual to find Logan working through the night, as the gears in his head hardly ever slowed. Even at home, Logan rarely got more than three hours of sleep; and Logan is a firm believer that time is the only commodity, and any time given must be accounted for, and exploited to its fullest. Work is Logan's incentive.

"This is a bit different from my day."

"Yeah, it's changed a lot. Ah, there he is, see? I told you he'd be here."

Logan doesn't look up. "Good morning, Mr. Picani."

"How'd you know it was--?" Emile pauses. "Nevermind."

Logan leans away from the microscope, but not to address the newcomers, only to turn to his laptop. He begins to type. He is typing so fast, like a machine. One hand lifts from the keyboard, extending open-palmed toward his colleague behind him, the other hand never ceasing its furious tapping. "Mr. Picani, can I borrow your phone? No signal on mine."

"What's wrong with the landline?" Emile's voice asks from behind him.

"I'd rather text." Logan says, simply.

There's the ruffling sound of Emile's hand dipping into his jacket pocket. Ah, he hasn't even put on his lab coat yet. He must've come straight to Logan upon arrival. There's a hesitation, before the sound of a pat down. "Sorry. It must be in my other coat."

"Here, you can use mine."

Logan pauses. He doesn't know that voice. He turns around on his stool, to look at Emile, and his companion. Beside his colleague stands a stranger, who wears a grey windbreaker over a black polo shirt and dark pants, and he leans heavily onto a wooden walking cane. His brown hair is cut short and clean. His lips are drawn in a tight, polite line. His eyes hinted at smiles long lost. A friend of Emile's, perhaps. The stranger's hand is extended, offering Logan a rather swish smartphone.

"Thank you." Logan says, taking it from him.

"This is my... friend, Virgil Watson." Emile says, obviously hinting at something. Ah, of course.

But Logan isn't listening, already typing away on the screen of Virgil's phone. He mutters something:

"Afghanistan or Iraq?"

Virgil blinks, unsure if he heard him correctly. "...I'm sorry?"

"Where did you serve? Afghanistan or Iraq?"

Virgil looks over at Emile in confusion, but the other man just nods and smirks.

"Afghanistan..." Virgil says, turning back toward the man whose name he didn't know. "I'm sorry, how did you--?"

The other interrupts him. "How do you feel about the violin?"

"I... what?"

"I play the violin when I'm thinking. Also, I sometimes don't talk for days on end. Would that bother you? Potential flatmates should know the worst about each other."

Virgil, flummoxed, looks to Emile. "Did you tell him about me?" He asks, softly.

Emile is watching the interaction unfold with a fond and amused smile, and a knowing air. He shakes his head. "Not a word."

"...Then who said anything about flatmates?" Virgil asks, slowly, trying to understand what, exactly, is happening.

"I did." The man with Virgil's phone, says. "I said to Mr. Picani less than a week ago, that I was a difficult man to find a flatmate for. Now, he turns up with a friend of sorts, who is clearly just home from military service in Afghanistan. Wasn't a difficult leap." He hands Virgil's phone back to him.

Virgil takes it, numbly, tucking into his coat pocket. "How did you know about Afghanistan?"

But, the man isn't really paying attention, logging out of his computer, and turning around to pick up his lab coat, and hang it up on the coat pegs, replacing his long outdoor coat, and pulling it on. "I've got my eye on a nice little place in central London. Together, we could afford it. We'll meet there, tomorrow evening, at seven o'clock." He hastily ties a blue scarf around his neck, and brushes past the other two men, to get to the door. "Sorry, I've got to dash. I've left something in the mortuary."

"Wait, is that it?" Virgil asks, stopping the other.

"Is that what?" The angular man turns back around, briefly.

"We've just met, and we're going to go look at a flat?"

He tugs the collar of his coat up. "Problem?"

Virgil almost laughs. "We don't know anything about each other. I don't even know your _name_. I don't even know where we're meeting!"

The other man smiles a little, he loves this part. "I know that you're an army doctor, and you've been invalided home from Afghanistan." He pauses, before continuing. "I also know you've got a brother with a bit of money who's worried about you, but you won't go to him for help because you don't approve of him; possibly because he's an alcoholic, more likely because he's recently walked out on his wife. And I know that your therapist thinks that your limp is psychosomatic, quite correctly, I'm afraid." He quirks an eyebrow. "That's quite enough to be going off of, don't you think?"

Virgil is staring at him now, in utter astonishment. What? _What??_

"The name's Logan Holmes. The address is 221-B Baker Street." He nods in parting. "Afternoon, gentlemen."

With that, Logan turns on his heel, and walks out the door.

Virgil watches after him, slack-jawed. He turns to look at Emile, who is smiling even wider now.

"Yeah." Emile says. "He's always like that."


	8. Six

Virgil drops into the chair at his desk, tossing the gun that he always has on his person onto his bed as he goes. Ever since returning from abroad, Virgil hasn't felt safe without one. He sits, and immediately courses a hand through his hair, still a bit dazed. What kind of man had he just met? Even during the entire taxi ride home, he couldn't stop thinking about him. How had Logan known all of those things?

New thought. Virgil hurriedly reaches into his pocket, and pulls out his phone. He swipes it open, and opens his text messages. The top one is labelled " _SENT",_ and it's addressed to an unknown number. Virgil clicks it open.

_If the brother has a green ladder, arrest brother._

_-LH_

Virgil stares at this. What?

He turns to his computer, setting his phone aside. He enters the passcode, and opens it. He opens a new browser window, and begins to type into the search bar:

_Logan Holmes_

\---

A queue at the taxi rank leading out of the railway station. In the line, shuffling along, is Jennifer Wilson. She's dressed head to toe in red, down to her heels and acrylic nails, and her red-cased iPhone, that she has pressed to her ear.

"I'll be there in an hour, I promise." She speaks into it. "Honestly, I'll be there. You get the drinks in."

She shuffles forward again in the queue.

\---

A small glass bottle stands on its own on bare floorboards. It holds only a few white and red speckled pills under its screw-on cap.

A hand, with carefully manicured red-painted nails reaches forward, and wraps around the bottle.

There's a choking sound, a gasp, and then silence.


	9. Seven

There's a black door, labelled with golden metal lettering: _221-B._

Virgil stands on the doorstep, pressing his hand firmly onto his walking cane, and rings the doorbell. He's a little surprised that he's actually here, to look at buying a house with a complete stranger.

"Hello." A voice comes from behind him.

Virgil turns around, to see Logan Holmes climbing out of a cab. He shuts the door, and turns his collar up against the wind. He looked much less dishevelled than he did in their first meeting, with his hair neat and his collar crisp. Logan rounds to the window of the taxi, and hands a couple of notes to the cabbie. After paying, Logan steps up beside Virgil.

"Mr. Holmes." Virgil says, working towards a tone of enthusiasm. He holds out his hand for the other to shake.

"Logan, please." He says, taking Virgil's hand for only a moment. Then, he himself rings the doorbell.

"This is a prime spot." Virgil says, trying to make conversation. "It's got to be expensive."

"Ah, yes, well. Mr. Hudson, the landlord, he's giving me a special deal. Owes me a favour."

"What for?" Virgil asks, letting his hands drop into his pockets.

"A few years ago, his husband got himself sentenced to death in Florida. I was able to help out."

Virgil gives him a skeptical look. Who is this guy?

"You stopped his husband from being executed?"

Logan clicks his tongue. "Oh no, I ensured it."

Just then, the door opens to reveal a young man in his early thirties. Mr. Hudson, presumably. He wears a pastel blue shirt, and a grey cardigan over brown khakis, and his chestnut brown hair falls in light curls over pale ears. "Logan!" He immediately throws his arms around Logan, capturing him into a suffocating hug. "I'm glad you made it! And you must be Virgil?" He waves at him, and puts a self-referring hand to his chest. "Patton Hudson. Come in, both of you! Here, I'll take your coats."

Virgil steps onto the mat after Logan, and wipes his shoes off on the fabric. Patton is taking Virgil's jacket from his hands, and Virgil knows that his gun is in that pocket. He's about to ask for it, but then realizes that maybe telling your possible landlord to hand you back your gun isn't the best way to make a first impression. So, he bites his tongue.

"Right up this way!" Patton says, starting up a set of wooden stairs, toward a second door, presumably leading into the flat. To the right of the staircase, is a door that leads into what must be where Patton himself stays.

The door is opened, and Virgil steps into the room, with Logan behind him. The main room is fairly large and pleasant; and a dreadful mess. There are stacks of newspapers by the door, several computers on various surfaces, a tumble of box files along the shelves, books _everywhere,_ a terrifying collection of what looks like weapons hanging above the fireplace, and a skull on the mantelpiece.

There's an adjoining kitchen, the table crammed with test tubes, jars, and bunsen burners. A hall to the right leads down to what Virgil assumes must be the bed and bathrooms.

But overall, the flat has the potential to be cozy. The amount of books around is comforting, and there are two armchairs, one red and one grey, that face opposite each other before the fireplace. Along the back wall is a sofa, that given the size of the room, doesn't end up being that far from the armchairs at all. There's enough natural light that Virgil can see just fine without the lights on. Besides the mess, the place is well kept.

"Well, I think that this could be very nice." Virgil says, stepping forward to peer around the corner and into the kitchen.

"Yes, my thoughts exactly." Logan says.

"Once we get all of this trash cleared out, I think that--"

"So I went ahead and moved in."

Virgil stops. Oh. "This... Sorry, this stuff is--?"

"Obviously, I can straighten things up a bit." Logan says, coolly.

Virgil bites his lip. "That's a skull." He says, looking to the mantle, avoiding Logan's gaze.

"Yes, that's a... friend of mine." Logan says, slowly. He walks all the way into the flat, and starts picking up books from the floor, and returning them to their shelves a little more aggressively than is necessary.

Mr. Patton Hudson comes bustling in, with the boys' coats still clasped in his hands. "So, what do you think, Dr. Watson?" He asks the man beside him, as he sets the jackets down on a small hat table by the door. Patton turns back around, and he pauses once seeing the embarrassed look on Virgil's face. Patton coughs a little. "Oh, also there is another bedroom upstairs... that is, if you'll be needing two bedrooms." He says, a little too casually.

Virgil looks at him, affronted. "I... Of course we'll need two. Why wouldn't we?"

Patton doesn't acknowledge him, as he's instead now looking around the devastated flat. "Oh dear, Logan look at the mess you've made."

Patton walks over to the kitchen area, putting things on shelves as he goes. Logan has begun busying himself at an old wooden desk by the window, which stands perpendicular to the wall opposite the front door, and just beyond the armchairs. Virgil eyes him thoughtfully. After a moment, he says: "I looked you up on the internet last night."

"Anything interesting?" Logan asks, without looking up, not at all alarmed.

"Well, I found your website. _The Science of Deduction_." Virgil says, moving to sit in the red armchair, which turns out to be unexpectedly comfortable.

"What did you think?"

Virgil pauses. "You said that you could identify a software designer by his tie, and an airline pilot by his left thumb?"

"Yes." Logan says, flippantly. "And I could read your military career in your face and your leg, and the drinking habits of your brother from your mobile phone."

"How?"

"What about these suicides then, Logan?" Patton asks, picking up a newspaper from the floor. "Isn't that right up your alley? Three of them, exactly the same. That's a little weird, isn't it?"

Suddenly, Logan looks up from the papers on the desk that he'd been intently reading, staring at nothing in particular. Like he's sensing something in the air. "Four. There's been a fourth. But there's something different this time."

"A fourth?" Patton asks, dropping the paper onto the accumulating stack by the front door. "How d'you know that?"

Logan simply points out the window. Virgil and Patton both crane their necks to look. They see blue and red flashing, like there's a police car parked down below. Suddenly, there's feet thumping on the stairs, and DI Remy Lestrade stands in the doorway. Virgil recognizes him from the news.

"Where?" Logan asks, fingers knitting together under his chin.

"Brixton. Lauriston Gardens." Remy says, not bothering to ask how Logan knows why he is here.

"What's different about this one? You wouldn't have come here if there wasn't something new."

"You know how they never leave notes?"

"Yes?"

"Well, this one did. Will you come?"

Logan leans forward, elbows _just_ resting on the desk, tempted now, interested.

"Well that depends. Who's on forensics?"

"Anderson." Remy says.

Logan's face contorts in distaste. "No. Anderson won't work with me."

"Well, he won't be your _assistant._ "

"I _need_ an assistant, Lestrade."

"Come on, Logan. Please, will you come?"

Logan ponders this for a moment. "Not in a police car. You go, I'll be right behind you."

Remy relaxes. "Thank you!" He calls out, as he whirls around and runs back down the stairs, tossing a cursory nod in Patton and Virgil's direction on his way out.

Logan is up out of his seat now, pulling on his coat as soon as it had come off, and buttoning it up lazily. Once the DI is out of sight, Logan's eyes light up excitedly. " _Brilliant!"_

Then, Logan leaps right over the sofa, which almost makes Virgil vocalize his surprise. Holmes grabs his kit off of the kitchen table, and starts stuffing various things into his pockets. "And I thought it was going to be a boring evening. Serial suicides, and now a note? It's Christmas!" He dashes over to the door. "Patton, I'll be late, might need some food."

"I'm your landlord, Lo, not your housekeeper." Patton protests quietly.

But Logan is already gone, bounding out the door with more energy than all of Virgil's interactions with him combined. Virgil looks after him, bemused. He walks over to the door, and picks up the newspaper that Patton had been talking about.

Patton looks at Virgil sympathetically. "Look at him, running off to who knows where? You know, _my_ husband was just the same." He shakes his head, and Virgil crosses past him to sit down. He's looking at the paper, and under the headline _"THIRD 'SUICIDE' FOUND"_ , there's a photograph. A snatched picture of the man who just left, accompanied by text: _"Detective Inspector Remy Lestrade, in charge of the investigation."_

"But you're more the sitting-down type, I can tell." Patton says, thoughtfully. "I'll tell you what, I'll make you a cup, and you rest your leg, hm? What do you drink, tea, coffee?"

"A cup of coffee would be great, actually, thank you." Virgil says, eyes scanning over the article.

"Just this once, kiddo, because you're new. Remember, I'm not your housekeeper." Patton says, as he makes his way into the kitchen.

"'Couple of biscuits too, if you've got any."

" _Not_ your housekeeper!" The tone is cheery, but warns that it might not be if Virgil pushes it.

Virgil is left sitting there, frowning as he sets down the paper. Logan Holmes, who the hell is he? Even on his website, the actual information about him is sparse. Other than that, he has no internet presence.

Virgil reaches for his sweater, which he'd taken off some time ago, and pulls his phone out of its pocket. He turns it over in his hand. _How had he done it?_

The door hits the wall with a bang as it's opened. "You're a doctor."

Virgil looks over his shoulder, startled, to see Logan Holmes back in the doorway, leaning in, and eyeing Virgil thoughtfully.

"In fact, you're an _army_ doctor."

"...Yeah?"

Logan takes a step into the room, looking hard at Virgil, speculating.

"Any good?"

Virgil frowns. "I like to think so." He finds himself standing up, though he doesn't really know why, like there's something momentous happening. It's almost like he's standing at attention.

"You've seen a lot of injuries, then?"

"Well, yeah."

"Violent deaths?"

"Enough for a lifetime. Far too many."

The two stand facing each other for a moment. Logan, considering. Virgil, not quite knowing what he is waiting for, but it's coming.

"Want to see some more?" Logan asks.

"Oh, God, yes." Virgil blurts out.

Logan nods. "Get your coat, then."

And Logan's dashing out for a second time. Virgil hesitates for a second, and then for the first time, goes dashing after him, almost tripping over his cane on his way. And he doesn't, in the thick of the moment, grab his coat.

They hurry past Patton, who's coming out of his own flat with a cup of coffee. Virgil looks to him. "Sorry, Mr. Hudson, thank you for making it, but I'll have to skip it. Off out."

Patton looks between Virgil and Logan. "Both of you?"

"Impossible suicides, Patton, four of them. There's no point in sitting at home when finally something _fun_ is happening!" Logan says, grabbing Patton's hand.

"Look at you, all happy. That's just wrong, Logan."

"Who cares about "wrong"? The game, Mr. Hudson, _is on!"_


	10. Eight

Logan Holmes and Dr. Virgil Watson sit side by side in the back seat of a taxi. Each pressed against their respective windows. The seat is made of old leather and cracked in various places, and the men on it both in various states of disarray from running out the door. Logan's glasses are askew and his scarf is untied. Virgil's sweater is only half on his shoulders, and his phone is still gripped in his hand. Logan glances at Virgil out of the corner of his eye.

"Alright. You've got questions." He says, with a sigh.

"Yeah, where are we going?" Virgil asks, not missing a beat.

"Crime scene, next." Logan says, in a tone that says that this is a waste of his time.

"Who are you? What do you do?"

"What do you think?"

Virgil does not respond right away, assuming initially that the question is rhetorical. But after a couple moments of silence, it becomes apparent that this is not the case. "Well, uh, I'd say that you're a private detective, but..."

"But?" Logan asks, looking at him again briefly, as if he knows what's coming.

"The police don't come to private detectives." Virgil says quietly.

There it is. "Yes, that's because I'm a _consulting_ detective. Only one in the world, I invented the job." Logan explains, vaguely annoyed.

"What does that mean?" Virgil prompts.

Logan sighs again, like this is incredibly tedious. "It _means_ that when the police are out of their depth, which is always, they consult me."

"But, police don't consult--"

Logan looks at him sharply.

"...Amateurs." Virgil finishes softly, pushing himself further against the window.

There's just the merest flash in Logan's eyes. He doesn't like that. His jaw tightens, and he turns to stare directly at the headrest of the driver's seat. "When I first met you yesterday, I said Afghanistan or Iraq? You seemed surprised."

"Yeah, how did you know?" Virgil asks, curiously.

"I didn't _know_ , Virgil. I _saw_." Logan closes his eyes, as if trying to envision the exact moment. To recall his exact thought process. "Tanned face, but no tan above the wrists. You've been abroad, but not sunbathing. Your haircut and the way you hold yourself says military, but you and Mr. Picani were talking when you came in. You said "This is a bit different from my day", which indicates that you were trained there, at St. Bart's. So a doctor, then. An army doctor, obvious." Logan presses the points of his fingers together, to create a triangle shape with his hands as he thought. "You have a walking stick, as your limp is really bad when you walk. But you didn't ask for a chair while you stood there, it's like you forgot about it, which means that it's at least partly psychosomatic. That says that the circumstances of original injury must've been something traumatic. Wounded in action, then."

He continued. "Wounded in action, a suntan. Afghanistan or Iraq?" Logan popped the Q on the last word, and opened his eyes.

Virgil sits in his seat, stunned. "I-I, so... Then, you said I had a therapist?"

"You've got a psychosomatic limp, of _course_ you have a therapist. Then, there's your brother..." Logan closes his eyes again, focusing. "Your phone. Expensive, email and data enabled, MP3 player too. You're looking for a flatshare, though, so you wouldn't waste money on this as you clearly don't have much to spare. It's a gift, then."

His brow furrows, like he's trying to get a clearer image on something. "There were scratches on the screen, likely from being in the same pocket as keys or coins. But the man in front of me wouldn't treat his one luxury item like that, so there's been a previous owner. Next bit's easy, you know it already." He gestures for Virgil to add in.

"The engraving, on the back." Virgil's words are slow, as he's trying to catch up.

"' _Harry Watson, from Clara, xxx.'_ Harry Watson, clearly a family member who's given you his old phone. Not your father, no, this is a young man's gadget. Could be from a cousin. But, you're a war hero who can't find a place to live, unlikely that you've got any extended family, or certainly not one you're close to. So, brother it is."

Logan leans back in his seat, and presses his pyramid-positioned hands to the underside of his chin. "Now, Clara. Who's Clara? Three kisses following the name says that it's a romantic attachment, but the expense of the gift says wife, and not girlfriend." He pauses to take a breath. "Now she must've given this to him recently, as the phone model is only about six months old. It's a marriage in trouble, then, with only six months on before he gives it away. If she'd left him he probably would've kept it. People do, sentiment. But no, he wanted to get rid of it; _he_ left _her._ "

A hand jets out to point at Virgil. "Now, he gave the phone to you, which indicates that he wants you to keep in touch. But you're looking for a cheap place to live, however you didn't approach your brother for help, clearly. That says that you have problems with him. Maybe you liked his wife, maybe you _didn't_ like his drinking--"

"How can you _possibly_ know about the drinking?" Virgil asks.

"If you look at the plug-in at the base of the phone. Harry plugged it in every night to recharge, but there are scuff marks around it. A shaky hand. You never see marks like that on a sober man's phone, and you never see a drunk's without them."

Virgil looks down at his phone, and sure enough, there are wobbly scratches all around the port.

"There you go, you see? You were right."

Virgil's head whips up. " _I_ was right?"

Logan nods curtly. "Police don't consult _amateurs_." The word is said so sharply that it stings.

The moment hangs, the sound of the traffic and the road cutting into the cab like knives. Logan's gaze is hard and piercing, singeing a hole into the seat in front of him.

Virgil gapes at him. "That was... That was amazing."

Logan glances at him, a little surprised. Like he's not used to that sort of reaction, and is rather pleased by it. "Do you think so?"

"Yeah. That was extraordinary. Quite, quite um... extraordinary." Virgil finds himself fumbling, a bit gobsmacked.

Logan looks away again. "That's not what people usually say."

"What do they usually tell you?"

Logan folds his hands in his lap, and turns to the window. "To fuck off."


	11. Nine

The cab slows to a halt in front of a long row of similar looking houses. All tall and slim. One of the houses has a cluster of police vehicles outside of it, and uniformed officers coming in and out of the front door, the whole thing roped off with yellow tape. Logan is now climbing out of the cab, followed by Virgil, who'd only paused to pay the driver quickly before surfacing.

"So, did I get anything wrong?" Logan asks, as they walk toward the scene.

Virgil shoves his hands into his pocket, and kicks at a stone on the pavement, sending it skidding off into a nearby drainpipe. "Harry and I don't really get along, never have actually. Clara and Harry split up about three months ago, they're getting a divorce. Harry is a drinker---"

"Spot on, then? I didn't really expect to be right about _everythi--"_

"Harry is short for Harriet."

Logan stops. "...Harry's your _sister_."

Virgil falters, staring at the onslaught of police vehicles nervously. "Okay, so why exactly am I here?"

Logan's hand goes to his temple. "Your _sister_."

"Seriously, Logan, why did you bring me?"

Logan drops his head back in frustration. "God, there's always _something_!"

They are much closer to the crime scene now, the cautionary tape is within reach. Incredibly bleak and incredibly real. Virgil is about to try to get Logan's attention again, when a body dips under the tape to stand in their path. A young, strong-looking man, who appears to not at all be trying to hide his annoyance. He watches Logan Holmes as he approaches. Logan comes to a halt in front of him, and they stare at each other evenly. It's very clear to Virgil that the two know each other.

"Hello, freak." The man says to Logan, chin raised.

"I'm here to see Detective Inspector Lestrade." Logan says, unfazed.

"Why?" The officer says accusingly.

"I was invited."

"Why?"

"I think he wants me to take a look."

"Well, you know what I think, don't you?"

"Always, Roman. I even know that you didn't make it home last night."

The man's eyes widen ever so slightly, but his face remains neutral. Much to his chagrin, he's used to this. He then looks to Virgil, seeming to only then recognize that he's here, just standing, and feeling incredibly out of place.

"Who's this?"

"Colleague of mine, Dr. Watson." Logan turns to him. "Virgil, this is Sergeant Roman Anderson."

"A colleague?" Roman scoffs. "How did _you_ get a colleague, Holmes? Did he follow you home?"

Virgil looks between the two, nervously. "Look, should I just go? It might be--"

"No." Logan puts out a hand to stop him.

Roman lifts his walkie-talkie to his mouth, not once taking his fiery eyes off of Logan. "The freak's here." He said. "I'm bringing him in now." Then he turns, not bothering to wait for them to catch up as he leads them under the tape and up the garden path.

Logan pauses to look up at the house, scrutinizing it, thinking. Virgil clocks this, and does the same. The building is darkened, abandoned. Not too rundown, but cold and empty. Once through the front door, Remy Lestrade greets them quickly in passby, telling Logan to meet him upstairs when he's ready. Virgil wonders if he even noticed that he's here.

Roman stops, and glowers at Logan.

"This is a crime scene, Holmes. I don't want it contaminated, we clear on that?"

Logan doesn't look at him, watching Remy ascend the stairs with a smirk. "Roman, is your girlfriend away long?"

"...Don't pretend that you worked that out. Someone _told_ you that!"

"Your deodorant told me that."

Roman looks exasperated. "I-- My _deodorant_? Jesus Christ, dork, how on earth would my _deodorant--_ "

"It's a very strong scent, and you wear it all the time. Your whole person smells of it."

"Well, yeah, duh. I'm wearing it."

Logan's eyes flick over to him. "So is Inspector Lestrade. May I go in, Sergeant?"

A look of panic passes across Roman's face, but he quickly does his best to mask it. "You're such a prick. You listen to me, okay? Whatever you're trying to imply--" Roman blutters, red-faced.

"Oh, I'm not implying anything. I'm sure you just went over to Remy's house for _work reasons_ , and just happened to fall asleep there. It happens to the best of us." Logan's eyes flicker over Roman quickly, evaluating. "I suppose you scrubbed his floors too, judging by the state of your knees--"

Roman flushes. "Alright, just go in, _go in_ , Jesus!"

Logan sweeps by, with a triumphant smirk on his face. Virgil, a bit taken aback, a bit amused, follows him toward the staircase.


	12. Ten

A dark, narrow hallway, with peeling wallpaper. Clearly this house has been uninhabited for some time. The corridor Logan and Virgil are walking down leads to an open door at the end of it, beyond it is DI Lestrade, waiting for them. Although, now, Remy is in full crime scene protective gear. He catches sight of them, and nods to Logan. "I can give you two minutes."

"I may need more than that." Logan says, striding confidently past him, and into the room beyond. Virgil follows him hurriedly, cane creaking against the dusty floorboards.

The room is a grimy disused kitchen. There's a couple of uniformed officers, this room being setup as the operations base of the investigation. Logan reaches into a bucket on a nearby cart, and tosses a white plastic crime scene coverall to Virgil, who catches it out of reflex.

"Put it on." Logan instructs.

Virgil doesn't question it, already sliding his foot into one of the legs. The DI looks at him, confused. "Logan, who's this?"

"He's with me." Is all Logan says.

Virgil is pulling on the coverall, and pauses when he sees that Logan isn't doing the same.

"Yeah, okay, but who _is_ he?" Remy asks.

"I told you, he's with me."

"Logan, aren't you going to..?" Virgil gestures to his coverall as he zips it up.

Logan chills him with a look. The words crumble apart like dust in his mouth, and Virgil just lets it drop.

"Alright." Logan says. "So where are we?"

"Just up this way." Remy leads them over to another set of stairs. The three men climb the stairs, Remy shoots Virgil a suspicious look every now and again. They pass by other workers, and Logan is the only one not wearing a coverall, instead dressed with his calf-length black felt coat, but none of them questions or mentions it.

"Her name is Jennifer Wilson, according to her credit cards." Remy starts. "We're running them now for contact details. She hasn't been here long, some snooping kids from the area found her. Says she doesn't live here, no one does."

They reach the top of the stairs, and enter a small room beyond the landing. The room is dark, sombre, and the paint is peeling around them. In the centre of the room, is a slash of vibrant scarlet.

A woman in a bright red jacket, and matching shoes, lies dead, sprawled face down. The sight brings Virgil up short, and he feels his palms begin to sweat. But Logan, on the other hand, is eager. He's in his element now. He scours the room like a bloodhound, almost quivering with anticipation. His eyes are darting about, as if trying to keep track of imaginary floating notes or numbers. Then, as one of the workers passes by him, reading through notes on a pad in their hand, Logan winces.

"Shut up." He says, putting out a halting hand.

The worker, a young lady in her late twenties, falters. "I... I didn't say anything."

"You were _thinking_. It's annoying."

The lady opens and closes her mouth, before deciding not to retort, and bustles out of the room. Virgil and Remy exchange glances, and the latter rolls his eyes, clearly used to this. But Virgil, he's fascinated, trying to figure out what, exactly, Logan is doing.

Logan takes a step toward the body, eyes flicking over her, absorbing every detail. A blizzard of images filed away into memory, fast, close. He kneels down and lifts up her extended left hand gently, doing his best not to disturb anything if he can help it, and noting the ring on the fourth finger.

_Married._

His gaze pans down her fingers, to the floor, where she's scratched something into the wood with her fingernails. R-A-C-H-E. "RACHE".

_Left-handed._

A fleeting thought, as he quickly focused on what was clearly more interesting. The word. The definition comes to him as if straight out of a dictionary, just how he has ingrained it into his memory.

_ra - che:_   
_German (n.) - revenge_

Words begin to scatter and vanish in Logan's vision. Now, just the word "RACHE", but with alternating different letters on the end of it, spinning past, like a fruit machine or lotto machine style. The letters slow, settling on:

_RACHEL_

Logan settles himself beside the body, and runs his hand over the blazer of the woman, and lifts up his hand to inspect his leather glove. He rubs his fingers and thumb together, peering at them closely.

_Wet._

He pulls a fold-away umbrella from her coat pocket, it is white in colour, which Logan makes sure to scribble down in his mind somewhere for safe-keeping. He shakes it a bit.

_Dry._

He sets the umbrella back where he found it, and now slides a finger under her collar.

_Wet._

Now, he pays careful attention to her jewelry. A necklace, earrings, bracelet. All matching in gold. 

_Clean. Clean. Clean._

He again looks at her engagement ring, as he sets her hand back on the floor. A mottled gold.

_Dirty._

He makes sure to go back and edit his earlier observation.

_Unhappily married._

He pulls a small rectangular magnifying glass from his pocket, and holds it up to the ring. The slot machine is spinning again, settling this time on a number.

_Unhappily married. 10+ years._

Through the lens of the magnifying glass, he closes in further on the ring. He's then pulling it from the flesh of the finger, examining the interior curve of the ring, which is slightly brighter, shinier, than the exterior.

_Regularly removed._

Logan then leans back, and looks at the woman's face. Her eyes are closed, and her lips are slack, red lipstick smeared a bit to one side.

_Serial adulterer._

An accusation. Logan lets out a breath he's been holding, and smirks. He stands up, to face the two others.

"Well? Got anything?" Remy asks.

Logan straightens up. "Not much."

"She's German."

Remy and Virgil glance around. Roman Anderson is observing, sardonically, from the doorway. He looks very pleased with himself. "Rache is German for revenge. She could be trying to tell us something."

Logan doesn't even glance at him, as he's now typing something in his phone. "Yes, thank you for your input." Without looking up, he reaches over and closes the door neatly in Roman's face.

"She's German?" Remy asks.

"No, of course she's not German." Logan says, cynically, as he tucks his phone into his pocket, having found what he needed. "She is from out of town, though. Planned to spend a single night in London, before returning to Cardiff. So far, so obvious."

"I'm sorry, obvious?" Virgil interjects.

"What about the message, then?" Remy adds.

"Dr. Watson, what do you think?" Logan asks, without hesitation.

That catches Virgil off guard. "I-I, um, of the message?"

"Of the body, you're a medical man, yes?"

Remy frowns. "Holmes, we have a whole team right outside--"

" _They_ don't work with me." Logan says.

Remy makes an annoyed noise. "Hun, do you know how many rules I'm breaking, letting you in here?"

"You're doing that, because you need me."

Lestrade glowers for a moment, but falls silent, because he himself knows better than anyone that Logan is right. "God help me." He grumbles, as he massages his nose. He leans back against the wall, and flicks his wrist dismissively. "Do your worst."

Virgil is now looking between the two like a cat at a tennis match. But his gaze sticks to Logan once he calls his name again.

Logan gestures toward the body.

"What?" Virgil says, dumbly.

Logan nods toward the body, quick, imperious. _Do it_.

Virgil, uncertain, looks to Remy.

The DI just rolls his eyes and shakes his head. "Oh, whatever. Do as he says, help yourself why don't you?"

Virgil finds himself stepping forward, to kneel down beside the body. Logan kneels across from him, watching him intently. "Well?"

Virgil swallows thickly as he looks down at the corpse, and his stomach churns uneasily. He looks up at Logan. "What am I doing here?" He whispers, so that Lestrade can't hear.

"Helping me make a point." Logan says, voice just as hushed, his eyes flick to Remy.

"I'm _supposed_ to be helping you pay the rent." Virgil whispers.

"Yes, but this is more fun."

" _Fun?_ A woman is dead, Logan."

Logan shrugs. "Perfectly sound analysis, Dr. Watson. But I _was_ hoping you'd go a little deeper."

Virgil's eyes linger on Logan's for a moment, but then he sighs, and drops his head to look at the body. His gaze becomes critical, and he scans over her for a moment. Then, he slowly bends over her, and sniffs by her mouth. He takes a moment to stop himself from gagging, and sits up. "Asphyxiation, I think. Passed out, and choked on her own vomit? I can't smell any alcohol on her though, so it could've been a seizure, possibly drugs?"

Logan raises an eyebrow. "Come on, Virgil. You know what it is, you've read the papers."

"She's one of the suicides. The fourth one."

Remy interrupts now. "Logan, I said you had two minutes. I need anything you've got."

Logan sits back. "Victim is in her late forties. Professional, going by the state of her clothes. I'd guess something to do with the media, going by the frankly alarming shade of red. She's travelled from Cardiff today, intending to stay for one night, that's obvious from the size of her suitcase--"

"Wait, suitcase?" Remy asks.

"Yes, suitcase, do keep up, Remy. She's been married for at least the last ten years, but not happily. She's had a string of lovers, but none have known that she was married--"

Remy scoffed. "For God's sake, if you're just making this up--"

"The wedding ring, ten years old at least. The rest of her jewellery has been regularly cleaned, but not her wedding ring. That's the state of her marriage, right there." Logan continues. "The inside of her ring is more polished than the outside, that means that it's been regularly removed; the only polishing it gets is when she pulls it on and off of her finger. It's not for work, because look at her nails, she clearly doesn't do strenuous work with her hands. So what, or rather _who,_ is she taking it off for?"

Remy has bitten his tongue now.

"Clearly, not for one lover, because she'd never be able to maintain the fiction that she was single over time. So, more likely a string of them. Simple."

Virgil has moved away from the body, and is now scribbling away in a notebook in case this might be important later for reference. "Brilliant!" He says.

Logan and Remy both look at him.

Virgil flushes. "Sorry."

Remy turns back to the detective. "So, Cardiff?"

"Obvious, isn't it?"

Virgil shakes his head. "Not obvious to me."

Logan marvels. "What on earth is it like in your silly little brains? It must be so boring _._ Her coat. It's slightly damp, she's been in heavy rain within the last few hours. There's been no rain in London during that window."

The detective slips a finger under her collar once more. "Under her collar is wet, too. She must've turned it up against the wind. She's got an umbrella in her left pocket, dry, unused, so strong wind then. Too strong to use her umbrella." He says, pulling out the object for emphasis.

"Now, we know from her suitcase that she meant to stay overnight, so she had to come from some distance. But, she can't have travelled more than two to three hours, otherwise her coat would've dried. So where has there been heavy rain and strong wind in the time radius of that time?"

Logan reaches into his coat pocket, pulls out his phone, and turns it to face Remy, a weather report on the screen. "Cardiff."

"That's amazing!" Virgil says.

Again, both Logan and Lestrade turn to look at him.

"Do you know that you do that out loud?" Logan asks.

"I... Sorry, I'll be quiet."

Logan watches Virgil for a moment, and smiles a little. "No, it's fine."

"Okay, why do you keep talking about a suitcase?" Remy asks.

"Yes, where is it, by the way? There must be a phonebook or an organizer or something that can tell us who Rachel is."

"So... she was writing 'Rachel'?"

"No, she was writing an angry message in German-- _of course she was writing Rachel!_ No other word it could be. The question is, why did she wait until her dying moments to write it?"

Remy holds out a hand. "Okay, wait, wait, wait. Can we go back to the suitcase thing? How do you know she had a case?"

"The back of her right leg." Logan says, matter of factly. "Tiny mud splashes on her heel and calf, not present on the left leg. She was pulling a wheeled suitcase behind her with her right hand, you don't get that splash pattern any other way. Smallish case, going by the spread of the mud. A case that sized, with a girl who dresses like that, there could only be enough supplies in there for a one night stay. An overnight bag, then. Now where is it? I'd like to look inside." Logan says, sinking down to look over the body again.

"There wasn't a case, Logan."

This reply brings him up short. He looks at the DI, stares at him. "Say that again."

"There wasn't a case. There was never a suitcase here."

Logan bolts up, hand covering his mouth. Thinking, the wheels spinning. He shoves past Remy, and out onto the landing, and shouts over the banister.

"A suitcase! Did anyone find a suitcase? Was there a suitcase in this house?"

Various officers from around the area stopped, only to look at him blankly. Remy emerges from the room behind him.

"Logan, there was no case."

Logan doesn't respond, now in a ferment of thought. "They take the poison themselves, Lestrade. They chew and swallow the pills _themselves_ , there are clear signs. Even you all couldn't miss them."

"Right, yeah, thanks. _And?"_ Remy asks, bitterly.

"It's murder. All of them. I don't know how, but they're not suicides, they're killings, serial killings. We've got ourselves a serial killer. Love those, there's always something to look forward to."

"Why? Why are you saying that?"

"Where's her case? Come on, where is it? Did she eat it?" He turns around to face Remy, eyes glinting. "Someone else was here, and they took the bag. So the killer must've driven her here. Perhaps she forgot the case in the car..."

"Maybe she checked into her hotel, and left her case there?" Virgil offers, as he steps out onto the landing.

"No, no. She never made it to her hotel. Look at her hair, all dishevelled from the wind. She colour coordinates her lipstick with her shoes, she'd never have left the hotel with her hair still like--"

And then he just stops. Like there's a whole bunch of thoughts arriving in his head all at once. He slaps his hand to his head, suddenly. "Oh, _oh!_ "

"...Logan?" Virgil says.

Logan turns, and begins racing down the stairs.

"What? Holmes, what is it?" Remy calls, frantically rushing to the banister.

"Serial killers, always hard." Logan calls back. "You've got to wait for them to make a mistake."

Remy slams a hand onto the rail. "We can't just _wait!"_

"Oh, you don't have to. It's already happened. Look at her! I mean, really _look_ at her, Remy!"

"Wait, Logan where are you going?"

"Go to Cardiff, find Jennifer Wilson's friends and family, and find Rachel!"

"Yeah, sure. But what mistake?!"

Logan turns around and shouts up from the bottom of the stairs. "Scarlet!" And the door slams shut behind him.

Remy is hunched over the banister, and looks wearied for a moment. Like he's just run a marathon, or that this isn't the first time something like this has happened. The DI sighs, and calls down to his crew. "Alright then, let's get on with it!"

His team starts piling up the stairs and into the room, practically shoving past Virgil. He's still on the landing, looking more lost than ever, everyone ignoring him. Virgil begins to unzip the white coverall, humiliated, as he starts to limp down the stairs.


	13. Eleven

Virgil limps outside, and looks around, scouring through the crowd of policemen. Everyone is moving around now, and it's not only louder. It's like everything was frozen before, to let Logan do his work in perfect stillness and silence. Speaking of which, where _is_ Logan?

"He's gone." Roman Anderson says, stepping into view, as if reading Virgil's thoughts.

"Logan Holmes?"

Roman nods. "Took off just now. He does that."

"Is he coming back?"

"Didn't look like it." Roman crosses his arms over his chest.

Virgil is a little winded at this, embarrassed. But he hides it, like a good soldier. "Um... right. Right, yes, sorry."

He turns to go, but then realizes...

"Um, sorry, where... where am I?" It feels like a blow to the stomach, asking.

Roman raises his eyebrows. "Brixton."

Virgil bites his lip, feeling a bit helpless. "...Do you know where I could... get a cab? It's just, my leg--" He gestures down to his bad leg helplessly.

"Try the main road."

Virgil looks out toward the far end of the street. There seems to be a busy street crossing down that way. "Okay, thank you." He starts to limp off in that direction.

"Hey." Roman's voice stops him.

Virgil turns back around, to see Roman looking him up and down curiously. "You're not his friend, he doesn't _have_ friends. So, who are you?"

"I'm-- I'm nobody. I only just met him."

Roman nods, expression softening a bit. "Bit of advice, then. Stay away from that guy."

Virgil frowns. "Why?"

Roman rolls his eyes. "You know why he's here? He's not paid or anything. He _likes_ it. He gets off on it. The weirder the crime, the more he gets off."

Virgil shifts his weight uncomfortably.

"You know what?" Roman takes a step forward. "One day, just showing up won't be enough. One day, we'll be standing around a body and it'll have been Logan Holmes who put it there."

Virgil stares at the sergeant, appalled by that idea. "Why would he do that?"

"Because he's a robot. A psychopath. And psychopaths get bored."

Virgil just looks at him. Could that... be true?

Remy just then, pokes his head out from inside the house. "Anderson!"

"Coming!" Roman calls over his shoulder, before refocusing on Virgil. "I'm telling you, Mr. Nobody. Stay away from Logan Holmes."

\---

Virgil is making his way down the seemingly never-ending street. He stops for a moment to lean against a nearby phone booth, easing off of his bad leg a bit. Just as he does so, the phone in the booth begins to ring. Virgil pauses, and looks at it, confused. He starts to walk again, and as soon as he's past the booth, the phone silences. Virgil stops, and turns to face the phone, sitting on its hooks as innocently as a halo.

That's odd.

Virgil turns back around, and walks a bit more, down to the end of the road. He tries to flag a taxi, but it speeds right past him. Dejected, Virgil starts to walk down the main road, hoping to find another cab, or at least a map. An abrupt ringing catches him off guard, though. He slowly looks to his left, and sees a public phone hanging on the outside of the bank building, buzzing away in its holster.

Probably a coincidence, but still, Virgil's pulse quickens just ever so slightly, and he walks just a bit faster.

He passes by a convenience store at the next corner, and there's more ringing. Virgil whirls around, almost knocking into a woman and her dog passing by. He quickly apologizes, but keeps his eye on the store. At the back of the store, by the sale's clerk's desk, a singular red phone on the wall. Ringing.

No, it couldn't be for him. That's stupid, crazy. Crazy.

The shop clerk frowns, and Virgil watches him reach out for the phone. But just as his hand is about to wrap around the receiver, the ringing...

Stops.

Virgil stops at the next set of lights, waiting to cross the road, when--

_Ring, ring!_

He's hallucinating, surely. This can't be happening.

But sure enough, a phone in one of three booths lined up by the curb, the one just behind him, is ringing.

Virgil steps towards it fearfully, as if it might blow up when he touches it. He carefully lifts the receiver to his ear with a shaking hand.

"Hello?"

A deep voice comes from the other end of the line. _"There is a security camera at the top right corner of the building opposite you, do you see it?"_

"I'm sorry, who is this?"

_"Do you see the camera, Dr. Watson?"_

Virgil's heartbeat is thundering in his ears. He turns around, and looks at the building across the street, eyes too-quickly finding a white security camera, just able to make it out in the darkness. "Yeah." His voice is unsteady.

_"Watch it closely."_

The camera suddenly swivels to life, turning to face opposite the direction it was before, away from the street.

"Who are you? What's happening?" Virgil asks, frantically. His hand jumps to his waist, dipping into a pocket that turns out to be empty. He pats down his other pocket in a panic, searching for his gun. But then he realizes that it's back at the flat, in his coat. The one that he isn't wearing.

_"There is another camera, this one on the footbridge to your left. Do you see it?"_

Virgil looks around, and finds another camera just in time to see it spin to face away from him. Panic was quickly rising into his throat like bile, this is the stuff of horror films.

_"One more. At the top of the streetlamp, two along, on your right."_

One more camera, the same thing.

"How are you doing that?" As he asks, he sees a black limousine pull up to the curb in front of him.

_"Get into the car, Dr. Watson. I would make some sort of threat, but I'm sure your situation is quite clear to you."_

With that, the phone goes dead in his ear. A well-dressed man climbs out of the car, and opens the rear door for him. Although it's not raised, the man makes no effort to hide the black pistol in his hand. Virgil barely has the mind to hang the receiver back up, before letting his feet carry him into the car, thoughts praying to any god that he doesn't die today.


	14. Twelve

Virgil's not alone in the back. Beside him sits an admittedly beautiful hispanic woman, dressed in a smart, well-fitted pant suit. She doesn't even look up at him as he gets into the car, she just continues to tap away on her Blackberry.

"Hello." Virgil says, not sure really how to act given the current situation. Or how to greet a possible alias in this kidnapping.

The woman looks up at him. "Hi." She says, polite, but her tone hinted that she didn't really want to be disturbed.

Virgil feels the limo start up, and roll away from the curb. At least he knows that he is going to be no less lost than he is already. "What's your name?" He asks the lady.

"Andrea."

"Is that your real name?"

"Nope."

"Okay." Virgil says, wringing his hands, trying his best not to show how panicked he is right now. "I'm Virgil."

"I know."

"Is there any point in asking where you're taking me?"

"Nope."

"...Okay."

\---

After about forty minutes or so of driving, seemingly aimlessly, the limo is pulling into an industrial estate. Warehouses, containers. It's deserted, desolate, and is really creeping Virgil out. He is peering out of the window, trying to catch sight of a street sign, anything that he could use to help him figure out where he is. He doesn't dare reach for his phone, though, because that driver has a gun, and Andrea-Not-Andrea is keeping a close eye on him out of the corner of her eye.

The car lurches to a stop, and it's only moments before heavy footsteps are circling around to his door. The driver pulls it open, and snarls at him. "Get out."

Virgil is quick to do as he's told. Andrea follows suit. She starts to walk toward the opening of a corridor, and Virgil watches her go. She stops, and looks over her shoulder. "Well come on, then." 

He grips his walking cane, and hobbles after her. He follows her down the corridor, footsteps echoing as loud as his heartbeat against the metallic walls. Andrea opens a door at the other end, and motions for Virgil to go through. Once inside, the door slams shut heavily behind him, making the doctor jump.

The room is vast, and entirely empty. Entirely empty with the exception of two chairs. They are set up opposite each other, and perpendicular to Virgil, in the center of the room. One of them is empty, waiting. The other is occupied by a man in a sharp black suit and a hat that dips down over his face, low enough that the majority of his features are obscured from view at this angle. All features, that is, excepting his mouth, which is curled upward in a smile that holds all the warmth of a crocodile's. He is flipping through a notebook, and he doesn't look up when he speaks with a voice that Virgil immediately recognizes is the one he heard on over the phone.

"Have a seat, Dr. Watson."

Virgil looks around, looking for some sort of escape, but the entire room was solid metal with the exception of the concrete floor. With no other option, Virgil slowly makes his way to the offered chair.

"You know," Virgil starts, trying to sound cocky and unafraid, more like Logan. More like how Virgil used to sound. "I've got a phone."

"When one is avoiding the attention of Logan Holmes, one learns to be discreet. Hence this place," The man says, gesturing to the room around him. "Your leg must be bothering you, doctor. Please, sit down." He motions to the chair opposite him, and Virgil slowly sits.

The man raises his chin, and his face is somewhat revealed now, though mostly cast in shadow. He inspects Virgil with a reptilian cold gaze, expression unreadable. There's a long scar trailing over his left eye, that looks fierce and angry. Virgil does all he can to keep a straight face, and not squirm under the other man's scrutiny.

"You don't seem very afraid." The man says, at last.

"You don't seem very scary." Virgil nips, fighting to keep his voice steady.

"Ah, yes, the bravery of a soldier. Bravery is by far the kindest word for stupidity, don't you think?" The man chuckles, before his jaw locks. "Now, what is your affiliation with Logan Holmes?"

Unbelievable, how much this detective has seeped into his life in literally less than a day.

"I don't have one. I only met him yesterday. I barely know him."

The man raises an eyebrow. "And since then you've... let's see..." He looks down at his notebook. "Gone to his home, discussed moving in with him, and have begun solving crimes together. Might we be expecting a happy announcement by the end of the week, hm?"

Virgil tightens his grip on his walking stick. "Who are you?"

The man pauses, and shrugs nonchalantly, his snake-like smile still spread over his face. "An interested party."

"Interested in Logan? Why? I'm guessing you're not friends."

The man laughs again. "Have you _met_ him? How many friends do you imagine that he has? I'm the closest thing to a friend that Logan Holmes is capable of having."

"What's that?"

"An enemy."

"A... An enemy?"

"In his mind, certainly. If you asked him, he'd probably say his _arch enemy_. He does love to be dramatic."

An echoing bell reverbs around the room, and Virgil's hand instinctively moves to his pocket. It hovers there, and he looks up at the other man, frozen. The man just watches him, expectantly. So, Virgil carefully pulls out his phone.

_(1) New text message_

He opens it, to see a message from a new number.

_Baker St. Come at once if convenient._

_-LH_

"I hope I'm not distracting you." The man speaks.

"No, no, sorry." Virgil says, tucking his device away quickly.

"Do you plan on continuing your association with Logan Holmes?"

"Not to be rude, but I don't think that's any of your business."

"Well, if you _do_ end up moving into Baker Street, I would be happy to pay you a meaningful sum, on a regular basis of course, to... _ease your way."_

"Why?"

"Because... how do I say this? You're not a rich man, no offense."

"In exchange for what?"

"Information. Nothing indiscreet, nothing you'd feel uncomfortable with. Just... tell me what he's up to."

"Why?"

A silence, and the man offers the winteriest smile. "I worry about him. Constantly." The last word is drawled and almost antagonizing.

"That's nice of you." Virgil says, sarcastically.

"But, I would prefer, for _various_ reasons, that my concern go... unmentioned. Logan and I, we have what you might call, a _difficult_ relationship."

Another silence. The two just look at each other, one clearly way more at ease than the other. Virgil's phone beeps at him again. Another text, which he checks quickly.

_If inconvenient, come anyway._

_-LH_

"No." Virgil says, as much to the phone as to the man across from him.

"I haven't even told you the figure I'm offering."

"That's okay, there's no need."

The other man smiles, amused. "You're very loyal, very quickly, doctor."

"No, I'm not. I'm just not interested in getting between... whatever you two have going on."

The man looks down, consulting his notes. "It says here that you have trust issues."

"What?"

The man let out a dramatic and dragging gasp. "Can it be that you've decided to trust _Logan Holmes_? Of all people? I'll tell you right now that that's a ludicrous mistake."

"I never said that I trust him."

He shrugs. "You just don't seem like a person to make friends easily, is all."

Virgil, a little anger mixed with his panic now, stands. "Are we done here?"

"You tell me."

Virgil is all too eager to start toward the door.

"I imagine that people have already warned you to stay away from him. But I can see from your left hand that that's not going to happen."

That brings Virgil up short, but he doesn't turn around. "My what?"

"Show me."

Bewildered, Virgil slowly turns around. The man is standing now, mere feet away from Virgil himself. The doctor slowly raises his left hand, holding it out toward the man so he could see, but keeping it out of his reach. Virgil himself watches uneasily. What's wrong with his hand?

The man steps forward, and takes Virgil's hand by the wrist, slowly revolving it. Not in a way that is intimate or kind. The touch is cold and mechanical. A forensic examination.

"Remarkable." The man whispers, to no one but himself.

"What is?"

"Most people blunder around the city, and they see cars, buses, shops, all of those things. But not you, Dr. Watson. When you walk with Logan Holmes, you see a battlefield. You've seen it before, haven't you?"

"What's wrong with my hand?" Virgil demands.

The man pulls away, and quickly consults his notebook. "You have an imminent tremor in your left hand, it says here. Your therapist thinks it's post-traumatic stress disorder. She thinks that you're haunted by the memories you have of military service."

Virgil yanks his hand back. "Who the hell are you, and how do you know that?"

The man just ignores him. "You should sack her, she's got it backwards. You've been under stress all day, and your hand is perfectly steady. You see?"

Virgil looks down at his clenched fist. Firm and unmoving.

"You're not haunted by the battlefield, Dr. Watson. You _miss_ it."

Clench, unclench. Clench, unclench. Virgil straightens his shoulders, and turns to leave, hoping to look unaffected. His fingers wrap around the door handle, without a single wave of tremor.

"It's time to choose a side, Dr. Watson." The man calls after him. "If I were you, I'd make sure I was on the right one."

A woman waits for him on the other side of the door. Not Andrea, a different woman. This one a ginger, but wearing the same suit as Andrea had been. "I'm here to take you home, mister. Thank you for your... cooperation. I'm sure you'll be hearing from us soon. Now, what's the address?"

Virgil isn't really listening, ears ringing, and his focus on another new text.

_Could be dangerous._

_-LH_

It's time to make a decision. Pick a side. He looks at his left hand, which remains completely steady. 

The woman is getting impatient. "Address?"

Virgil looks at her, finality in his eyes. "Baker Street. 221-B Baker Street."


	15. Thirteen

Virgil enters the flat, cane under him. The room is in half light. Logan Holmes is sprawled on the sofa, seemingly in dreamy contemplation. He is surrounded by paper in both the floor and the couch cushions. His laptop is open on his chest, with his phone gripped in one hand. By the state of stillness and settled dust in the room, it looks like Logan hasn't moved in hours.

One of Logan's sleeves has been rolled up, and he's fiddling with something on his forearm. From this angle, Virgil can't exactly see what, though.

"What are you doing?"

Logan glances irritably at him, and extends his arm to show him, there were three beige band-aid looking stickers on his arm.

"Nicotine patches, Virgil. They help me think. Impossible to maintain a smoking habit in London these days, bad news for brain work."

"But, good news for breathing." Virgil offers, as he moves in to sit in the armchair from earlier.

"Oh, breathing. Breathing's boring."

" _Three_ patches, Logan?"

Logan shrugs. "It's a three patch problem." He just lies there, ignoring Virgil for the most part, deep in thought, eyes trained on the ceiling.

"Well?" Virgil asks, expectantly.

Logan says nothing, and simply continues to stare, lost in thought.

"You asked me to come here. Something important?"

"Ah, yes, of course. May I borrow your phone?" Logan asks, extending a hand toward Virgil, similarly to how he had when they first met. It seemed like a very long time ago. Apparently, a lot can happen in 36 hours.

"My phone?"

"Yes. I didn't want to use mine. There's always a chance that my phone number could be recognized. It's on the website."

Virgil stares at him in bewilderment.

"Doesn't Mr. Hudson have a phone?"

"Yes, but Patton's downstairs. I tried shouting, he didn't hear me. Probably got distracted with cooking or something, or gone to bed early, or something of the like."

" _I_ was on the other side of London!"

"There was no hurry."

Logan holds his hand out imperiously for the phone. Virgil is shaking his head, but he knows there's no point in going on any further. He hands his phone to Logan with a sigh.

"What's this about? The case?" Virgil asks, leaning back in the chair.

" _Her_ case."

"Her case?"

"Yes, her suitcase, obviously. The murderer took her suitcase. First mistake."

"Okay... so they took her case. Why is that important?"

Logan doesn't reply, lost in his own train of thought. After a moment, he shakes his head. "...no, it's no use. There's no other way, we'll have to risk it. Virgil, there's a number on my desk, I want you to send a text to it."

Virgil stares at him. "You... You brought me here to send a _text_?"

"A text, yes! The number on the desk, Virgil."

Logan looks to Virgil, who's hesitating. His hand is trembling slightly, and the detective realizes that the man looks a little shaky. Logan stops for a moment. "What's wrong?"

Virgil takes a deep breath, avoiding Logan's gaze. "I, well, I just met a friend of yours."

"A _friend?_ "

"An enemy." Virgil rephrases, using the man's words.

"Oh, which one?" Logan asks, sitting up a bit.

"Your arch enemy, according to him. I didn't know people had arch enemies."

Logan is sitting all the way up now, laptop set aside. He looks troubled. "Did he offer you money to spy on me?"

"Yeah."

"And did you take it?"

Virgil shakes his head.

"Hm, pity. We could've split the fee. Think it through next time." Logan drops back down with a contempt sigh.

"Who is he?"

"The most dangerous man you've ever met, and not my problem right now. On my desk, the number!" Logan says, tossing Virgil's phone back to him.

Virgil gets up, and finds himself stepping over to the desk. On top of the stacked papers, a slip of card with a name: Jennifer Wilson, along with a Cardiff address, and a mobile phone number along the bottom.

"Jennifer Wilson? Wait, isn't that the... dead woman?"

"Yes, doesn't matter." Logan dismisses. "Just enter the number on the card, are you doing it?"

"Yes." Virgil says, as he hurriedly plugs the number into his phone.

"Is it done?"

"Hang on... yep."

"Now, type these words _exactly_. 'What happened at Lauriston Gardens? I must've blacked out. Twenty-two Northumberland Street. Please come.'"

Virgil looks up, concerned. "You blacked out?"

"What?" Logan's hand flicks by his face, dismissively. "No, no. Type and send, quickly." Logan has sprung up from the sofa, and now heads off for the kitchen. Now he's returning with...

Virgil, still fumbling with the text, breaks off, and stares at Logan.

Because the detective has returned from the kitchen with a blood red suitcase. The exact case that Logan had earlier described. It's wheeled, with an extendable handle.

"Sent it yet?" Logan pressures.

"I, sorry, what's the address?"

"Twenty-two Northumberland Street, hurry up!" Logan bangs the case down onto the coffee table, and opens it. He throws himself down onto the grey armchair, and presses his fingers into a pyramid-like position, tucking them under his chin as he stares calculatingly at the suitcase.

Virgil presses the ' _send'_ button definitively, and powers his phone off. The screen blackens, and Virgil looks toward the coffee table. "That's... that's the scarlet lady's case. Jennifer Wilson's case."

"Yes, of course it is." Logan says, matter-of-factly. "Oh, I should probably mention that no, I didn't kill her."

Virgil sits down across from Logan, in the red armchair, setting his phone on the coffee table. A little thrown, and a little chilled. "I never said you did."

"Why not?" Logan asks, pushing his glasses further up his nose. "Given the text I just had you send, and the fact that I have this case, it would be a perfectly logical assumption."

Virgil rubs his hands off on his pant legs. "Do people usually assume that you're the murderer?" The words of Roman Anderson from earlier echo and linger in his head.

"Now and then, yes."

Virgil watches Logan closely for a moment, wondering how this statement didn't seem to bother the detective in the slightest. He shakes his head, and returns his attention to the bright red suitcase. "Okay, so how did you find it?"

"By looking."

Virgil was quickly learning that Logan needed to be asked very direct questions, as he doesn't seem to ever elaborate. "Where did you look?"

"The killer must have driven her to Lauriston Gardens. He could only keep her case by _accident,_ if it was in a car. No one could be seen with a case like this without attracting attention, especially a man, which is statistically more likely. So, he'd feel compelled to get rid of it the moment he noticed that he still had it, which couldn't be long after he'd left the murder site. It wouldn't have taken him five minutes to realize his mistake."

"So," He continues, "I checked every back road wide enough to fit a car within five minutes of Lauriston Gardens, and checked every place someone could dispose of a bulky object quickly, without being observed. It took me less than an hour to find the right dumpster."

Virgil was shaking his head, remembering what Logan had shouted on his way out of the crime scene. "Scarlet. You got all that because you realized that the case would be _red_?"

"It had to be red."

Virgil runs a hand through his hair. "Why didn't I think of that?"

"Because you're an idiot."

Logan tuts when he sees Virgil's slightly offended expression. "It's okay, almost everyone is. Now look at her belongings, do you see what's missing?"

Virgil blinks a few times, shakes his head a bit, and looks at the bag's contents, full of makeup, toiletries, and some various clothing items. "From her suitcase? How could I?"

"Her phone, Virgil. Where's her mobile phone? No phone on the body, no phone in the bag. We all know that there has to be one, the number's on the card, you just texted it."

"Maybe she left it at home?" Virgil suggests.

Logan makes a noise that almost sounds like a laugh. "She has a string of love affairs, and she's careful about it. She _never_ leaves it at home." He plucks the slip of card from Virgil's hand, and re-inserts it to the luggage tag of the red suitcase.

"So why'd I just send that text, then?"

"The question is, where is it now?" Logan stops, waiting for Virgil to answer.

"She could've lost it." Virgil says, humouring him.

"Yes. Or?"

Virgil thinks for a bit, before it dawns on him what Logan is implying. "...The murderer. You think that the murderer has the phone?"

"Perhaps she left it in his car, when she left her case. Maybe he took it for some other reason. Either way, the balance of probability states that the killer has it."

"So, wait. I just _texted_ a _murderer?"_

Right on cue, Virgil's phone rings. The two men stare at the number on the screen, and Virgil's eyes dart from it to the number on the suitcase tag.

"Only a few hours since his last victim, and now he's got a text that could only be from her." Logan says, voice low. "Now, someone who just found the phone by happenstance would just ignore a message like that. But the murderer, on the other hand..."

The phone abruptly stops ringing.

"...would panic."

Logan springs to his feet, and crosses to the desk, where his calf-length collared black coat was hanging off of the back of his chair. He pulls it off with a flurry, and begins putting it on.

"Have you told the police any of this?" Virgil asks, reaching instinctively for his own hooded sweater, and forcing a fist down through the sleeve.

"Four people are dead. There isn't _time_ to talk to the police."

"Then... why are you talking to me?"

Logan flips up the collar on his jacket with a pop of his elbows. "Patton took my skull."

Virgil looks toward the mantelpiece, and sees that the skull he'd pointed out earlier is indeed gone. "So, I'm filling in for the skull?" Virgil asks monotonously, as Logan passes by him in the direction of the door.

"Relax, you're doing fine." Logan says, stopping and turning to look at Virgil, who is still sitting by the fireplace. "Well, are you coming?"

"You want me to come with you?"

Logan shrugs. "I'd prefer the company. I think better aloud, and the skull tends to attract attention when I bring it."

Virgil rises to his feet, unsure of his role in all this. He makes toward the door, and Logan opens it for him, stepping aside to let Virgil through first. He has one boot through the doorway, when he hesitates.

"Problem?" Logan asks.

Virgil turns to look back. "Sergeant Anderson..."

Logan's eyebrow twitches downwards, not having expected that."What about him?"

"He said that you... _enjoy_ things like this. The killings, I mean." Virgil says, teeth tugging on his lower lip.

Logan simply looks at him for a moment. Then, a ghost of a smile passes across his face. "And I told you "dangerous", and here you are." Logan then brushes past him, and down the staircase. He pushes open the front door, and leaves it swinging ajar behind him, seemingly confident that there will be someone to close it after him. Virgil is left standing in the doorway to the apartment, considering his options. There's a honking sound from a taxi outside.

"Damnit." Virgil curses, and he limps at high speed down after the detective, this time ensuring to grab his gun out of his coat pocket. He makes sure to lock the door behind himself.


	16. Fourteen

"Stop here, please."

The cabbie pulls over to the curb, and Logan is all too quick to jump out of the backseat, leaving Virgil to pay. Virgil, having no idea where they are or why they're here, is too curious to be spiteful about it at the moment. He all but tosses the notes to the driver, before following the detective out onto the street. It's late into the day now, and the streetlamps are low, and the sun is nearly invisible. The stars that should be emerging are all but invisible in the city.

Logan is already making strides down the street, and Virgil moves, hurrying to catch up. He struggles to keep his walking stick underneath him.

"Where are we going?" He asks, once he's managed to fall almost in stride with the detective.

"Northumberland Street is just a short walk from here."

"You think that the killer's stupid enough to go there?" Virgil asks, skeptical.

"No, I think he's brilliant enough." He slows just a tad, to allow Virgil to fully step up beside him. "I love the brilliant ones. They're always _so desperate_ to get caught."

The doctor frowns. "Why? Isn't that the opposite of what their goal, y'know, should be?"

"Appreciation, applause!" Logan jumps forward, to land in the beam of light from one of the streetlamps. He throws his arms out theatrically. "At long last, the spotlight! That's the frailty of genius, Virgil. It needs an audience."

Virgil, watching him, smiles satirically. "Yeah, clearly."

Logan is now looking around the bustling street. People hurrying everywhere. "This street, Virgil, look at it. It's his hunting ground, right here in the heart of the city." He turns around, eyes narrowed as he thinks. "We know now that the victims were abducted, and that changes everything. Because that means that all of his prey must have disappeared from crowded places, from busy streets, but nobody saw them go. They walked out of their lives with a complete stranger, and trusted him right to the moment that they swallowed the poison." Logan is pacing back and forth along the streetside now. "He can do the impossible. This one... he _needs_ to take a bow."

Virgil shifts his weight to lean on the cane more heavily. "That is, if it even is a 'he'. The scarlet lady was writing 'Rachel', right?"

"Yes..." Logan pauses his pacing. "Yes, that is odd. Until we know who Rachel is, there's really no point in speculating. Mustn't theorize in advance of the facts."

Then, he's pacing again, tapping two fingers against the rim of his glasses.

"Think, think, _think._ Who do we trust, even if we don't know them? Who passes unnoticed wherever they go? Who hunts in the middle of a crowd?" Logan's tone is harsh, but hushed. Like it's more directed towards himself than to Virgil.

"Who?" Virgil eggs, unsure if Logan's questions are rhetorical or not.

Logan stops his tapping, and looks to Virgil. "I haven't the faintest idea. Are you hungry?"

\---

Angelo's. A small, run down italian restaurant on Northumberland Street. The interior is almost as shabby as the exterior, with old-looking carpet and paint that's peeling at the corners. Virgil draws in on himself a bit more, turning to look out the window onto the street, which is quickly clearing as the moon rises up over the rooftops across the road. The restaurant smells of canned tomatoes, and cold ale. Logan seems to not mind, though, still as tall and as poised as ever.

A young, chubby waiter comes to the front mat to greet them. "Hello, Mr. Holmes!" He says, recognition igniting his features.

Apparently, Logan Holmes is a very well-connected man.

"Hello, Billy." Logan offers a curt nod, before Billy turns and takes them to a small table just under the big window. It's a bit secluded from the rest of the restaurant, but Logan seems pleased with it. He takes off his coat almost immediately, and Virgil is quick to notice that the detective didn't put his tie back on before leaving the house. The top buttons of Logan's shirt are popped open, and the black sleeves of the dress shirt are rolled up to just above the elbows. The detective lowers himself smoothly onto the bench, and he rests his hands on the table, averting his attention out of the window onto the street beyond. Virgil begins to take off his own hoodie, as the restaurant is quite warm. Almost sweaty. He slips into the seat across from Logan, and reaches for the water jug in the centre of the table.

"Logan! My god, is that you?"

A greasy little man, the owner of the restaurant, Virgil guesses by his nicer uniform, and the name tag that says " _Angelo_ " on it, comes bustling over to the table. "Billy told me you were here again. It has been so long! What brings you back to my restaurant?"

Angelo's italian accent is so thick, that Virgil almost couldn't understand him.

"Work business, this time." Logan says, monotonous.

"Ah, always work with you, Mr. Holmes. Long time, no see, but never change, hm?" Angelo says, with a boisterous laugh. "You should relax a bit." He rams a hand at Logan's back. It's meant to be friendly, but Virgil doesn't miss how Logan winces ever so slightly.

It's at this time that Angelo finally seems to notice that Virgil is there too. His face lights up comically upon seeing him, and Virgil waves at him, uncomfortable. Angelo makes a humming noise, as if he's just made the discovery of the century. "I'll tell you what, Logan. You can have _anything_ off the menu, free. On the house, for both you and your date."

Logan looks to Virgil questioningly. "Would you like something to eat, then?"

Virgil is looking between Angelo and Logan awkwardly. "I-I'm not his date."

But Angelo isn't listening. He throws an arm around Logan's shoulders, and Virgil sees Logan visibly tense up. "You know, this man got me off a murder charge?"

Logan's smile looks forced. "This is Angelo. Three years ago, I successfully proved to Lestrade that at the time of a particularly vicious triple-homicide, Angelo was on the other side of London, house-breaking."

"He cleared my name!"

"I cleared it a _bit_."

"Without him, I'd have gone to prison!"

"You did go to prison."

"...I'd have gone for longer!"

"Yes, that's true. Thank you, Angelo, but I think we'll need a minute to decide." Logan says, wriggling out from underneath the owner's arm.

"Ah, yes, of course. All the time you need." Angelo shoves a couple of menus at them, and begins to hurry away. "I'll grab a candle for the table, too! More romantic." The owner says, before disappearing into the kitchen.

Virgil flushes. "I'm not his da-- oh, nevermind." He's sure that Angelo means well, his intentions pure hearted, he's surely just a bit... much.

Logan is peering out of the window, quickly recovering from the suffocating interaction. He tosses his menu aside, disappearing into thought. Virgil follows his gaze, letting out a long breath. Across the street, is a large darkened building.

"Twenty-two Northumberland Street. Keep your eye on it."

The address that Logan had had Virgil text to the murderer. "Do you think he'll just walk up and ring the doorbell? He'd have to be crazy to do that."

"Yes, well, he _has_ killed four people."

Angelo reappears, almost out of nowhere. This time he has a long white candlestick in his hand. He sets it down on the table in between the two occupants, and lights it quickly. Virgil looks at it, feeling a little stranded.

"Um... thanks."

"You're more than welcome, young man. Give me a shout when you've made up your mind." Angelo says. Then, he sets a hand on Virgil's shoulder, and leans in close, speaking only loud enough for him to hear. "You know, we've just got in a new wine shipment. Mr. Holmes is fond of red, although I'm sure you knew that. I'd be happy to... get you started, hm?"

Virgil forces a tight smile, trying to be polite. "I think we're good with water, actually."

"Alright, well, the offer stands if you change your mind." Angelo says, patting Virgil on the shoulder thrice, before waddling off, the strong scent of rosemary and pizza grease going with him.

"You might as well eat." It's Logan who's talking now, the flickering flame of the candle reflecting moodily off of his glasses. "We might be waiting for some time."

"Alright." Virgil picks up the menu in front of him, scanning through rows of pasta. "What are you going to get?" He asks, eyes jumping up to look at the detective, who is once again focused on the building out of the window.

"Not hungry."

Virgil watches him for a moment. The detective's face and hair are cast in a pale blue light, bouncing in from the street beyond the glass. His dark eyes glint in the candle light, and his brows are furrowed. Virgil can almost hear the clockwork spinning in Logan's head. His hands are folded neatly on the table in front of him, just to the left of the menu he's discarded. Virgil hums a bit, thoughtfully.

"People don't have arch-enemies."

Logan blinks, and turns to look at the doctor. "I'm sorry?"

"In real life. There are no 'arch-enemies' in real life. It doesn't happen."

Logan's thinking again. Calculating. This time, his scrutiny on the man across from him, instead of the road. Virgil can see it in the way that his fingers wrap around each other on the table. "Doesn't it? Sounds a bit dull."

Virgil shifts under Logan's dissecting gaze. He seems to know so much about everyone at any given time, it's hard to be comfortable knowing that his counterpart could be diving deep into his soul. The way the detective's eyes flicked over him certainly made him feel that way. "So, who was that guy? The one who wants me to spy on you?" He asks, deflecting Logan's comment.

So Logan does the same, pressing his own point. "What do _real_ people have then? In their _real_ lives?"

Virgil sinks back in his seat, tossing a hand out, giving up the fight quickly. "I dunno, friends? People they know? That they like, and don't like?" His eyes slip down to the candle in between them, still just a little disconcerted. "Girlfriends, boyfriends."

"Like I said, dull." Logan says flippantly, turning to look back out of the window, squinting into the darkness.

"So, you don't have a relationship?" Virgil clears his throat, and avoids Logan's gaze. "Like a girlfriend?"

Logan glances over at Virgil for a split second. "A girlfriend? No. Not really my area."

"Okay." Virgil looks toward the kitchen, mind wandering to Angelo's comments, and he hears echoes of things Patton Hudson said back at 221-B. He feels a bit short of breath. "Do you have a, uh, boyfriend?"

Logan just looks at him, curious.

"Which is fine, by the way." Virgil adds, hurriedly.

"I know it's fine." Logan leans back in his chair a bit, adjusting himself. His eyes are scanning over Virgil like a computer. Analysing, interpreting, trying to diagnose.

Virgil wraps his hands around his water glass in front of him, just to give him something to hang on to. "So... you've got a boyfriend, then?"

"No."

Virgil coughs awkwardly, and nods. "Okay. Right then. You're unattached, which is okay. Good, even."

Logan's eyebrows draw inward, and his questioning stare bores into Virgil. Virgil shoves his hands into his jean pockets, unable to sit still. He looks away from Logan, trying to ignore the feeling of his artful eyes on him. "Unattached. Like me. Fine, good." Virgil wonders why his mouth is still moving, and so he closes it, deciding not saying anything was better than digging his grave even deeper.

Logan looks at him for a moment, and then down at his own slim hands, which are folded on the table."Virgil, you should know, I consider myself married to my work." His words are slow, he's picking them carefully. "While I'm flattered by your interest, I'm really not looking for any kind of--"

Virgil's eyes go wide, and he feels his temperature spike. "I-- No, no! I wasn't, um, no I didn't mean-- Just, everything's fine. That's all I'm saying, it's all just... fine." He really should just stop talking.

Logan nods, and clears his throat. "Okay, well, good. Thank you."

The two fall into a pregnant silence, which feels very stale to Virgil, and he wonders if Logan feels how warm it is in here. Virgil looks away from his counterpart, and out into the rest of the restaurant. He spots Angelo standing by the ice box, which is just outside the kitchen doors. The two make eye contact, and the italian raises an eyebrow. He reaches into the ice box, and pulls out a chilled bottle of what is clearly red wine. He motions to Logan, and shakes the bottle suggestively. Virgil tugs at his shirt, which feels very suffocating at the moment, and makes his best "no" motion under the table, and out of Logan's view.

Logan turns to look out of the window again, and his spine shoots straight. "Virgil, look across the street."

"Hm?" Virgil, who's still caught in a fit of discomfort and extreme embarrassment, has a bit of trouble catching up. "Oh, um, what is it?" He looks at the detective, who's interest has clearly left the confines of the restaurant. Puzzled, Virgil lets his gaze drag to follow Logan's out of the window, and he immediately sees it.

A taxi has pulled up in front of 22 Northumberland St.

"He came in a taxi! Oh that _is_ clever!" Logan says, fighting a grin.

"That's him? In the back?'

Logan waves a hand at him. "Don't stare."

"You're staring."

The detective shoots him a look. "Well we can't _both_ stare."

Then, in a flash, Logan is on his feet, grabbing his coat, and striding out of the restaurant. Rushing out as the man in the back of the cab looks to the driver. Dark, handsome face in the side profile. The cab begins to drive away, and Logan is quickly rushing down the sidewalk after them. Virgil, not wanting to be left behind again, is darting out after the detective in mere seconds, grabbing his hoodie as he goes. The force of it sends his walking stick falling to the floor from where it's leaning on the table. But, Virgil takes no notice, and the restaurant door slams shut behind him, leaving his walking stick forgotten on the floor.


	17. Fifteen

"I got the cab's plate number." Virgil says as he strides out of the restaurant, phone gripped in his hand, a slightly blurry image of a car's license plate being showcased on the screen.

"Good for you." Logan says, facing out towards the street. However, he isn't looking out at it. His eyes are closed behind reflective lenses in black frames, and he's thinking. Visualizing. Plotting. Mapping. "Left turn, one way, roadworks." The words are out of his mouth like rapidfire, but his brain is focused on mental images of London streets, roadways, as if lifted straight from a map. They snake across his visual, entwining and intersecting at two, three, four-way stops and crosswalks and traffic lights. The streets are likely full of zigzagging cars all on their own route to their own destination. But Logan doesn't care about all of those cars, he only cares about one in particular. The cab. To where is it headed? Which direction, which roads, will it take?

It's a question of habit, traffic, and probability.

All of which, Logan has studied thoroughly.

A grey dotted line plots out a route, the taxi, which is rounding blocks and streaking across the map at a blistering pace. But it is closely followed by a new, solid, red line. It's moving a bit slower, and is slicing through the blocks, chasing the grey one, on a shorter route. Not a straight line, no, quite the opposite. There are twists and sharp turns, but all in all, less deviations than the grey path. The red line cuts between buildings and over fences, all quite insurmountable by car. But, on foot--?

Logan's eyes snap open, and they flash across the road. Directly opposite where he and Virgil are standing, there's an apartment complex. A man in a brown coat with a leather briefcase is by the front door, key in hand, clearly just getting home from work at some sort of office establishment. He's just unlocking the door, about to go in-- and Logan lunges straight into traffic. Cars swerve around him, brakes squeal, and steering wheel horns blare piercingly. Logan beelines, and races across the road, drivers doing their absolute best to leap out of his way.

Dr. Watson, watches him go with a leap in his pulse and a widening of his eyes. A heartbeat, and he's racing after him. Running like he hasn't run in months, feet pounding on the pavement with resounding smacks from the souls of his shoes, and his sweater blossoming behind him.

Logan, now across the street, shoves the man at the front door of the apartment block out of the way, and races into the extending hallway. Virgil pursues him, shouting "Logan!" out to the detective, turning quickly mid-stride to hand an apology to the man who is now gripping the handrail by the doorstep like a lifeline. "Sorry, sorry!"

At the end of the hallway, Logan's pounding up a flight of stone stairs, with Virgil at his heels. At the top of the stairs, Logan doesn't even hesitate before flinging open a small window on the landing. His hands fly up, and grip the top trim of the windowsill firmly, and he jumps. He swings, feet first, out of the opening, launching himself out of the window, and he hits the rooftop running. Virgil comes gasping to the top of the stairs just in time to see Logan's hands detach from their hold before following the rest of him out of the window. _What the hell?_

But, the ridiculousness of the action doesn't stop Virgil from clambering out of the window after him.

The night wind is even colder and less forgiving up here, and Virgil fumbles with the zipper on his sweater as he tries to keep up. Logan runs full force toward the edge of the rooftop, and in one smooth motion, launches himself across the gap to the following building's eaves, stepping up onto the roof, and his feet are pounding across the shingles in an instant. Virgil, though, is a little less trusting of himself, and falters as he approaches the side. He knows that they're at least two stories up from the ground now, and he's never exactly been too fond of heights. His thoughts race past him, inertia propelling them past at a rate so fast that the question of how the hell Virgil managed to find himself here is only fleeting, and the answer is far beyond him at this point. Besides, there's only two ways off of the roof now.

"Jesus Christ." Virgil swears, and takes a running head start, before taking a leap of faith, his hands reaching, more flailing, for the roof of the next building.

The shingles are rough, and his fingers most definitely will blister from rub burn, but Virgil isn't thinking about that right now. Right now, he's focused on trying to not lose sight of Logan Holmes, who's tall silhouette is now shrinking toward the far side of the slanted roof. Virgil stumbles after him, feet slipping ever so often, and he approaches the edge. But, this time, instead of digging his heels, Virgil only speeds up as the drop approaches. He's in the air in an instant, nothing beneath him to stand between him and a plummeting death, and Virgil feels more alive than he has in ages.

His feet land securely on the rafts like they're designed to be there. He's running, racing, feet pounding and rebounding and propelling him down the steeply downturned slanted rooftop after Logan, who is, at this point, climbing down off of the end. Virgil hardly manages to slow himself down enough to jump safely to the ground without propelling himself forward on impact. He barely sticks the landing, regrounds himself, and straightens up.

For a split second, the rushing air and adrenaline stills, and there's just the two of them. Virgil, hair windblown and wild, hands still, and breathing like he'd been drowned. Logan, watching him, stunned, gears in his turning mind screeching to a stop for just a half of a moment.

"Virgil, you-- it's gone."

"Hm?" Virgil's heart is pounding against the sides of his chest, yearning to resume the chase. "What is?"

"Not important." Logan now has a grin on his face, a stupid grin that makes him look, for just a second, almost human. But then he's off again, running like the wind, down a long alley. He's barrelling towards what appears to be the stagedoor to a theatre. There's a hanging red fabric awning with large industrial sized rubbish and recycle pick-up storage bins alongside a heavy-looking metallic door to the brick building. A stagehand, presumably, who's black clothing is but a blur at their speed, is outside having a cigarette. Logan flings himself through the doorway, all but smacking the stagehand aside as he goes, and begins crashing through the black corridors.

"Hey!" The stagehand shouts after him, turning to the door.

Virgil brushes past him seconds after, "Sorry!" He shouts before belting off after the detective.

Logan emerges, crashing from the theatre, cannoning straight into a woman walking by on the pavement. Just shoves past her and takes off across the road, followed by an entourage of panicked drivers slamming on their breaks.

Virgil reaches out, and takes the woman's hand, pulling her to her feet with the help of his momentum. He shouts another apology that's gone with the wind behind him as he sprints across the street through the collateral damage left behind by Logan's storm.

Logan's pelting along a side street now, where none of the street lamps work. It's raining now, and water splashes up from beneath the detective's feet, overturned by the flick of his heels. He feels something brush up against his arm, and his head flails to his right, to see Virgil, who had been yards behind before, falling in toe with him. Virgil doesn't even look his way, his hair is blown and his eyes are set dead ahead with determination, even though Logan knows he never told the doctor where they were going.

They burst out of the end of the side street, and right into the traffic. The car that's speeding towards them emits a scream as the driver leans on the horn, and lurches to a halt. And Virgil finds himself face to face with the now stopped taxi that they'd seen on Northumberland Street.

Logan's already rounding to the back seat, passenger's side door, hand at his belt. He slams a card against the window and shouts: "Police! Open up, _open up now_!"

Logan hears the _ch-chick_ sound of the car doors unlocking, and grips the handle, tearing the door open, elated and breath slamming in and out of his chest.

In the back seat is a startled man. He's tanned, young, good looking, and surrounded by three or four small cases.

Then Logan's brain finally slows down a bit, and he frowns. Virgil comes panting up beside him to join him.

"No, no! Teeth, tan, what, Californian? L.A., Santa Monica, just arrived."

Virgil's head snaps toward the detective. "What? How could you--?"

"The luggage!" Logan cuts him off. He looks the man and his bags up and down. "Probably your first trip to London, is it? Judging by your destination and the route that this driver has taken you."

"Sorry, a-are you guys the police?"

"Yes. Is everything alright?" Logan says without missing a beat, even though Virgil knows full well that Logan seems to rather want to be caught dead than be confused with a police officer.

"I-- yeah."

Logan nods, "Welcome to London." He says, before turning on his heel and striding off, leaving Virgil just standing there, and the man looking after him, bemused.

"Uh, any problems, just let us know." Virgil gets out, before slamming the door, and heading off after Logan.

The man in question is now standing leaning against a traffic barrier, eyes focused strictly on the ground, and expression grumpy. Virgil joins him. "So, that was just a taxi that happened to... what? Slow down, then?"

"Basically." Logan's tone is bitter.

"So, I take it, not the murderer?" Virgil leans up against the barricade beside Logan, crossing his arms over his now slightly wet sweater, which is still being pelted on by the rain. He focuses on trying to even out his breath, and he feels the coursing adrenaline starting to seep out of his veins gradually.

"No, not the murderer."

"Yeah, being in the wrong country seems like a decent enough alibi." Virgil's laugh is more of just a forceful breath. He can see how frustrated Logan is, and apparently attempting to lighten the mood isn't helping matters. He can see it in the way Logan's lip twitches downward at the edges. 

He notices that Logan still has the police I.D. card grasped in one hand, and he gently takes it from him. He turns it over in his hand, inspecting both sides. "How'd you get this?" He reads the lettering on the front. "Detective Inspector Remy Lestrade."

"Yeah. I pick-pocket him when he's being annoying. You can keep that one, if you want. I've got loads more at the flat."

Virgil looks at the card, and starts to laugh.

Logan gives him a side-eye, slightly defensive, glance. "What?"

"Nothing, just..." Virgil shakes his head as he laughs. "Welcome to London!" He says, hands by his face as he makes an impression of Logan's tone.

In spite of himself, Logan chuckles too. But it quickly dies at something he's seeing. Virgil frowns, and follows his look. They see the taxi they'd stopped, now on the other side of the road a little ways down, pulled over to the curb. The driver is leaning out of the window, talking to a policeman in uniform, and pointing back down the road toward where Logan and Virgil are standing.

"Well, that can't be good." Virgil mutters.

Logan steps away from the traffic barrier, and wipes the rain from his glasses off on his coat sleeve hastily. "Got your breath back?"

Virgil nods, "Ready when you are."

By the time the policeman across the street looks toward where the pair had been standing, Holmes and Watson had jumped over the traffic barrier and dipped around the corner of the alley beyond, and are now running like hell.


	18. Sixteen

When Virgil and Logan finally stumble back inside 221-B, they're both elated, and quite out of breath. Puffed out, and a bit exhilarated. Their wet coat and hoodie are off in a flash, and tossed over the banister. Then the two are sinking against the backside of the front door with relief.

"That..." Virgil sputters between gasps for air. "Was the most _ridiculous_ thing I've ever done in my whole life."

Logan laughs breathlessly. "And _you_ invaded Afghanistan."

"Yeah, but that wasn't _just_ me." Virgil says, head falling back against the doorframe. Then he looks at Logan, confused. "Hey, why aren't we back at the restaurant?"

"Oh, they'll keep an eye out for me. It's a bit of a long shot, anyway." Logan dismisses, tugging at his collar, to pop a couple more buttons, just to be able to breath better.

Virgil closes his eyes for a moment, trying to understand. "So, then... Why were we there at all?"

Logan shrugs, with an amused smirk. "Passing the time, proving a point." He brushes his bangs out of his face.

"What point?"

"You."

Logan's up in an instant, and strides just around the underside of the stairs into the hall, calling out in the direction of where their landlord lives. "Patton! Virgil's going to move in, he'll take the room upstairs!"

"Wait, wait, says who?" Virgil's up after him.

Logan's eyes glint with something mischievous. "Says the man at the door."

Right on cue, the doorbell rings. It echoes cheerily, like delicate giggling down the short hall. Virgil, in shock, slowly turns to the door, which stands just a few feet away, and it feels like it's laughing at him.

"Well, you better go and open it then." Logan jerks his head toward the door, expectantly. Virgil looks between Logan and the door apprehensively, nervously, before doing as he's told.

The door opens, and Virgil is surprised to see Angelo, the italian restaurant owner, standing on the other side of it. He's still in his work suit, nametag and all, now a little wet from the rain out on the stoop. In his hands, is Virgil's wooden walking stick. "Logan texted me!" The man says, jollily. "Said you forgot this."

Virgil just stares, thunderstruck. His hand jumps to his leg, which feels fine with the exception of some achy muscles from running, jumping and climbing during the chase. The chase. He'd... gone that whole racing sequence without a single protest from his leg, not even when leaping between rooftops. He'd caught up, and then _kept up_ with Logan, whose legs are considerably longer than his own.

"I-I..." Virgil sputters, reaching to take the cane.

As he speaks, the door to Logan's flat, at the top of the stairs slams open. Mr. Patton Hudson comes stumbling down the stairs, tearful, and shocked. "Oh, Logan, what have you done?"

"Patton?" Logan asks, he rounds back around to the base of the stairs, and reaching a hand out toward the older man, suddenly worried.

"Upstairs!" Patton's voice is wobbly, and he's veering on tears. He steps down onto the floor shakily.

Virgil and Logan exchange a look-- what?? Then, they're racing up the stairs together, feet pounding Virgil tossing his just-returned walking stick aside as he goes.

That leaves the restaurant owner and the landlord alone at the base of the stairs. Angelo and Patton make eye contact, and they just look at each other awkwardly, for a moment, with one standing out in the rain, and the other looking like the tear-floodgates are threatening to open. The italian clears his throat. "Well, I hope everything's alright." He says, before closing the door squarely in his own face, and waddling off to his car, a little more hurriedly than before.

\---

Logan bursts into the flat, with Virgil at his heels, to see Remy Lestrade sitting in Logan's grey chair. He's examining the scarlet case, which lays open on the coffee table, where they'd left it. The room is full of policemen, swarming in and out of the kitchen, and down the hall to Logan's bedroom. They're pulling books off of shelves, opening and slamming cupboards, and tearing Logan's closet apart. They're searching the flat. A proper, full-on, search. Rubber gloves, crime scene wear, and guns at their hips.

"What are you _doing??_ " Logan cries, standing frozen in the doorway.

Remy looks up, expression stone-set and cold. "Well, I knew you'd find the case. I'm not stupid."

Logan's angry now, arms flying outward as he steps toward the DI aggressively. "You can't just _break into my flat!"_

Remy crosses one leg over the other, and lounges back in the armchair. "And _you_ can't withhold evidence." He says, coolly. "Besides, I didn't break into your flat."

"What do you call this, then?" Logan demands, gesturing wildly to the state of the place, and the various officers stripping down his home.

"A drug bust."

Logan's confidence and angry expression falter. But Virgil, who now stands beside the detective, is laughing. "Oh, come on, seriously? This guy, a junkie?" Logan's probably one of the most composed-looking people that Virgil's ever seen, he's clean cut and cool. The complete opposite of what comes to mind when you think of drug addicts, which brings to mind images of back alleys and dirt under fingernails. "Have you _met_ him?"

"Virgil..." Logan warns.

"Pretty sure," Virgil continues, almost belittling Lestrade now. "That you lot could search this flat all night, and you wouldn't find anything that you could even _maybe_ call recreational--"

"Virgil, you probably want to shut up now." Logan whisper is like a dagger.

"Yeah, but come on--" Virgil stops when he sees Logan's expression. Which is one of warning, and a bit of alarm. Logan is shaking his head, barely, but enough to be noticeable. Virgil stares. "...no, really?"

"What?"

Virgil is almost amused. " _You?"_

Logan looks affronted. "Shut up!" He then turns to Remy, eyes narrowing into slits. "I'm not your sniffer dog, Lestrade."

Remy smirks. "No, of course not. _Anderson's_ my sniffer dog."

The name makes the detective's skin crawl. Logan spins, and spots Roman Anderson in his kitchen, among other policemen. He's dressed in his form-fitting sergeant's uniform, the navy one with the black tie and a police badge on his belt. Roman's brown hair is slicked back, which is different from how Virgil had seen him earlier, with loose beach waves. Roman is wearing blue latex gloves on his hands, and he has a couple of seizure evidence bags sticking out of his chest pocket. He's searching through one of the cupboards, but stops when he spots Logan glaring at him. Roman sneers, and saunters forward, waving tauntingly at the detective.

"What is _he_ doing here?" Logan hisses.

"I volunteered." Roman says.

"They all did." Remy says. "None of them are, strictly speaking, _on_ the drugs squad. But they were all very keen on coming."

Roman lifts up a beaker, eyeing it in disgust. "Are these human eyes?" He asks, peering at the two eyeballs he's sloshing around inside the glass.

"Put them back." Logan says.

Roman looks up at him, judging. "They were in the microwave."

"It's an experiment."

"Keep looking, Roman." Remy dismisses him. Roman lingers for a moment, a condescending, contemptuous smirk on his face, before wandering off back into the sea of officers that are in the process of tearing the flat apart. Remy then looks to Logan. "Or, obviously, you could start helping me _properly_ , and I'll stand them down."

"This is childish." Logan spits, arms folding across his chest.

Remy's tinted glasses slip down to the end of his nose, and he peers over them at Logan. "Yeah, well, I'm dealing with a child. Logan, this is our case." He stands, and marches over to the detective, and the DI presses an accusatory finger to Logan's chest. "I'm letting you in, but you don't go off on your own. Clear?"

Logan looks between Remy's outstretched hand and his face, unimpressed and still fuming. "What, so you set up a pretend drug bust, to _bully_ me?"

Remy's eyebrow quirks upwards. "It stops being pretend if they find anything."

"I'm clean." Logan says, in a definitive tone.

"Oh yeah? Is your flat? _All_ of it?" Remy steps back, hands pressing to his hips.

"I don't even smoke." Logan says firmly, tugging up a sleeve to show Remy his nicotine patches for emphasis.

Remy does the same. Also a patch. "Neither do I."

The two stare each other down for a moment, challenging each other. Eventually, Logan tugs his sleeve back down with a huff, and Remy looks quite smug. "Good, then. Let's work together. We've found Rachel." Remy says.

Now that has Logan's attention. "Who is she?"

"Jennifer Wilson's only daughter."

"Her _daughter._ " Logan crosses past Lestrade, stepping over discarded books and papers as best as he can, avoiding the crinkle of paper to the best of his abilities. He moves past to sit in his chair. The one that Remy had been perched on only moments before. "Why would she write her daughter's name, why?" He asks, as he sits on the chair, elbows resting on his knees.

"Nevermind that." Roman's back, this time standing at Remy's shoulder. "We found the _case._ " He nods to the red suitcase that lays open on the coffee table. "According to _someone,_ the murderer has the case-- and here it is. In the hands of our favourite psychopath."

Logan scoffs. "I'm not a psychopath, Roman. I'm a _high-functioning sociopath,_ do your research."

"Whatever, at least _I'm_ not about to get caught for murder."

"At least _I_ didn't get caught having an affair with my boss." Logan quips.

Remy and Roman both freeze. The former turns to Roman, giving him a ' _what the hell??'_ look.

Roman's hands fly up in defense. "I didn't say a word! He figured it out, I--"

"Shut up, not here. We'll talk about this later." Remy says.

Logan is speaking again, ignoring the way Remy is now glaring daggers at the sergeant. "You need to bring Rachel in, you need to question her. _I_ need to question her, preferably--"

"She's dead." Remy cuts him off.

Logan's eyes blow wide. "Excellent! How? When? Is there a connection? There has to be." The detective leans forward, fingers knitting together under his chin, which seems to be a habit of his.

Remy shakes his head. "I doubt it, since she's been dead for fourteen years. Technically, she was never alive. Rachel was Wilson's stillborn daughter fourteen years ago."

Logan looks properly winded by this. This doesn't make sense. "No, no. That's not right. Why would she do that?"

Roman makes a disbelieving noise. "Right. Why on earth would she think of her _daughter_ in her last moments? Mhm, sociopath, I can see it now."

Remy shoots him a look that says _'you're not helping'._

Logan agrees, head whipping up to stare down Roman. "She didn't _think_ about her daughter, she scratched her name into the floor with her fingernails. She was dying, it took effort, it would've hurt. She was trying to tell us something."

Virgil pipes up for the first time in a while, although cautious when adding his opinion. "You said that the victims take the poison themselves. Somehow the killer makes them take it, right? Me he... I dunno, _talks_ to them? Maybe he used the death of her daughter somehow?" He crosses over to stand adjacent to the arm of Logan's chair. Now two pairs of men standing opposing each other, like they're playing an intense game of chess, still somehow on the same side.

Logan looks up at Virgil, confused. "But, that was ages ago. Why would she still be upset about that?"

Virgil winces, and shakes his head at Logan a little.

"Not good?" Logan asks, quietly.

"A bit not good, yeah."

Logan's nod is apologetic, but quick. He stands, and begins pacing frantically. "But listen, if you were dying, if you were being murdered, in your very last seconds, what would you say?"

"Please, God, let me live." Virgil says, leaning with both hands on the back of the chair that Logan had been sitting in just seconds prior.

"Oh, use your imagination!" Logan bats.

"I don't have to."

Logan shakes his head. "Yes, but if you were clever, if you were _very_ clever... Jennifer Wilson, running all of those lovers. _She_ was clever, and she's telling us something."

The door the flat is opened again, and Mr. Hudson comes into view, a shadowy figure standing behind him. Patton steps into the flat, and looks around, looking a bit frightened. "Um, I'm sorry to interrupt, but Logan, your taxi is here."

Logan is incredibly focused, deep in thought, eyes flickering back and forth as he tries to organize his thoughts. "I didn't order a taxi, go away." He snaps, pacing slowing and speeding up randomly.

Patton looks around the flat, and looks like he might faint. "Oh, dear. What are they looking for?"

"It's a drugs bust, Mr. Hudson." Virgil explains quickly, not taking his eyes off of Logan, who's now pacing like a whirlwind. Alive, energised. Images and words are flying past his vision. _Rachel, murder, self-administered, public hunt, red, red, red._ He's nearly got it, he's nearly there--

"Shut up!" Logan shouts. "Everybody shut up, I'm thinking, don't move, don't breathe, Anderson, face the other way, you're putting me off!" Logan's words are slurred and frantic.

"What, my _face_ is?" Roman asks, affronted.

The policemen slow to a halt, and look at Logan, confused. But, Remy knows the signs. He knows that Logan is about to figure it out. "Everyone, quiet and still. Roman, turn your back!"

Roman turns on Remy. "For God's sake--!"

"Your back, Anderson. Now!"

Roman looks angry, and a little frightened, but the protest dies on his lips. He does as he's told, and turns away, furious and embarrassed.

Logan is pacing faster and faster, if that's even possible. He's thinking, thinking, clutching his head. "Come on, _come on!!"_

Patton fumbles. "Logan, your taxi--"

" _MR. HUDSON!!"_ Logan yells.

Patton physically jumps, and startles into silence. Virgil is quick to move over and put a comforting arm around his shoulders.

Logan's eyes snap open with a bright spark. "Oh, oh!" Logan freezes. "Oh, she was clever. Clever, yes, I _love_ her! She's cleverer than you lot and she's _dead!"_ Logan says, throwing an arm out the motion to everyone else in the flat. There's some noises of offense, and some furrowed brows, but Logan takes no notice. Neither do Remy and Virgil, who are listening intently.

"Do you see? Do you see it?" Logan asks, eyes focusing on Remy, Patton, and Virgil in turn. He's met with blank expressions of confusion and fright one after the next. Logan puts a hand to his mouth, trying to find the words to explain this. "She didn't _lose_ her phone, she never lost it. She _planted_ it on him. When she got out of the car, she knew she was going to her death-- she left the phone to lead us to her killer!"

"But, how?" Remy interjects, smacking Roman across the shoulder when he starts to turn around. Roman groans, and returns to his backward position.

"What do you mean, how?" Logan turns on Lestrade. "Rachel, don't you see? Rachel isn't a name at all!"

"Then, what is it?" Virgil asks, trying to understand.

Logan has grabbed his computer off of the sofa, and sets it on the desk. He opens up an internet browser hurriedly, and sits in the wooden desk seat. "Virgil, the luggage label, it has an email address on it."

Without questioning, Virgil goes straight to the suitcase, still as shockingly scarlet as ever, and picks up the tag. "Jennie Scarlette, with two T's and an extra E, dot Wilson at mephone dot org dot U.K." Virgil reads out.

Logan types rapidly, opening _mephone.com_ as fast as he can. The screen changes, and there's two empty fill-in boxes for the log in. He types the email address into the top one:

_jenniescarlette.wilson@mephone.org.uk_

"And, all together now, the password is...?"

It slams into Virgil like a bus. "Rachel." He says, stunned.

The screen changes again, opening to reveal an inbox of mostly read emails.

"Amazing." Virgil says, in disbelief. He crosses over, and sets one hand on the back of Logan's desk chair, the other on the edge of the desk, staring at the screen in marvel.

"So we can read her emails, so what?" Roman asks, turning back around now.

"Don't talk out loud, Roman, you lower the IQ of the whole street." Logan says, tapping away. "We can do more than just _read her emails_. Her phone, it's a smartphone, it's got GPS, so if you lose it..." Logan drags the mouse on his laptop screen over to a button that says ' _Find My iPhone'_ , and clicks on it. Another button: _'Update Location'._ He clicks it, too. "...you can locate it online."

On the screen, a little clock appears, arms spinning.

_Your phone will be located in: 3 mins._

"She's leading us straight to the man who killed her."

"Unless he got rid of it." Remy says.

Virgil shakes his head. "We know he didn't."

"How the _fuck--?_ "

"Come on, quickly, quickly!" Logan raps on his computer screen with his knuckles, impatiently.

Patton's voice comes from the doorway, a little desperate sounding. "Logan, dear, this taxi driver--"

"Patton, please." Logan shuts him up with a halting hand out towards where he knows Mr. Hudson to be standing. Then, he springs up from his seat, and crosses to Lestrade, paper crinkling underfoot. "Get some vehicles ready, Remy. Get a helicopter, if you can. We need to move fast, that phone battery won't last forever."

Virgil has gone to the laptop, taking Logan's spot before it. He's drumming his fingers on the wood of the desk, staring at the little clock on screen, willing the search to go faster.

"We'll only have a map reference, Logan. We don't even have a name!" Remy protests.

"It's a start." Logan fires back.

Virgil's eyes go wide, as the screen flickers to life. "Logan--"

However, Logan is still arguing with the DI. "It narrows it down from it being literally anyone in London, which is what we knew before, in case you'd forgotten. This is the first proper lead that we've had!"

" _Logan."_ Virgil says, again.

Logan turns around, to see Virgil staring at the screen.

"Where is it?" Logan asks, at Virgil's side in an instant, stooping to peer at the screen.

Wait, what?

"It's... It's here. It's at 221-B Baker Street." Virgil whispers.

The graphic on the screen shows a map of London, with a target symbol hovering over Baker St.

"But, that can't be right." Logan says. "How can it be here?"

"Maybe it was in the case when you brought it back, and fell out somewhere?" Lestrade offers.

Virgil shakes his head. "No, I texted it, earlier, and he called back."

"Guys!" Remy calls over his shoulder to his team. "We're also looking for a mobile phone, belonging to the victim..."

Remy's voice is lost to nothing but an echo, as Logan is thinking once more. His mind is racing, the room around him becomes a slowing blur. Voices seep and drone, and he can hear the _thu-thud_ of his own heartbeat in his ears. Thinking. _Thu-thud._ Thinking. _Thu-thud._

He hears his own voice now, echoing in his head.

_"Who do we trust, even if we don't know them?"_

Still in eerie slow-motion, Logan's gaze rises, and closes in on Patton Hudson, who's still standing in the doorway.

_"Who passes unnoticed wherever they go?"_

_Thu-thud._ Closer on Patton.

_"Who hunts in the middle of a crowd?"_

_Thu-thud._ His gaze slowly rises, drifting over Patton's shoulder, to...

The man standing behind him. A shadow slants over him, concealing his face. But there's a badge around his neck, just visible, gleaming against his chest.

_Thu-thud._

Jeffrey Patterson. In the railway station. He's just hanging up the phone with a smirk on his face. He starts off down the street, his hand reaches out, flagging over a car with the sign _TAXI_ on it's roof.

_Thu-thud._

Jimmy Almore. He's running back through the rain for an umbrella. Beyond him, through the rainy gloom, he sees a yellow taxi light turn on, like an evil eye in the darkness.

_Thu-thud._

Beth Davenport. She's a little tipsy, in the carpark at the back of the town hall. She's at her car, rooting in her bag for her car keys. _Damn it, they've done it again!_ Beyond her, a taxi is just slowing to a halt.

_Thu-thud._

Jennifer Wilson. She's chatting away on her phone that's encased in red. She shuffles forward in the queue she's standing in, full of all of the other people waiting for a cab.

_Thu-thud._

Logan's sight narrows in on the badge, which reads _TAXI_ in gold lettering. Logan notices something else, too. A bright red phone, gripped in one of the figure's hands.

The figure slowly steps away, and turns down the stairs.

Logan's rooted to the spot.

"Logan. Logan? Are you okay?"

It's Virgil, watching him with concern.

Logan's phone beeps from his back pocket. He pulls it out.

_(1) New text message._

Logan unlocks his phone with a swipe, and opens the message. It's from an unknown number:

_COME WITH ME._

Logan is just staring at the text. "What? Yes, yes. I'm fine." He says, distracted. The flat is still swarming with bustling police officers, loud noises, and a lot of movement. But Logan simply stands there, in silence, just staring at the message. Then, his feet are moving, seemingly on their own, of their own accord. They carry Logan toward the door, after the taxi driver. Logan's hand twitches, and he slowly tucks his phone away. He grabs his discarded coat on his way down the stairs.

"Wait, where are you going?" Virgil is standing at the top of the stairs.

"Nowhere. Fresh air. Be right back."

"Are you _sure_ you're alright?" Virgil asks, troubled.

"Fine." Logan says, and the front door closes shut behind him.


	19. Seventeen

Logan steps out onto the stoop. Pulled up, right in front of him, is a hearse-black taxi. Leaning against it, is the driver. He's an ordinary looking man, in his early sixties, by the look of him. He wears wire-rimmed glasses that are small and perched on the end of his nose. He wears a brown down jacket over uninteresting grey pants and work boots. His hands are wrinkled and worn, and his cap on the top of his head is worn. His eyes are glassy, but acute. The smile on his face seems innocent, but it's anything but friendly.

"Taxi for Logan 'Olmes." The man says, his cockney accent is thick.

"I didn't order a taxi." Logan says, staying still on the porch.

The cabbie shrugs. "Don't mean you don't need one."

"You. You're the driver. You stopped in front of Northumberland Street. It was _you_ , not your passenger." Logan says, as he puts the pieces together.

The cabbie's smile widens. "Ye see, nobody ever thinks about the cabbie. It's like we're invisible. Just the back of an 'ead. Proper advantage for a serial killer, don't ye think?"

Logan steps down to the sidewalk. "Is this a confession?"

"Oh, yes. And I'll tell ye what, if you go an' get the coppers right now, I won't run. I'll sit quiet and let 'em take me down easy. Promise." The man says, but his face resembles the cat who caught the canary.

Logan takes another step forward. "Why?"

"Because you won't do that."

"I won't?"

"I didn't _kill_ those four people, Mr. Holmes. I spoke to 'em, and they killed 'emselves. Go and get the coppers right now, and I promise you this: _I'll never tell you what I said._ " He turns, and calmly climbs into his cab.

Logan's hand shoots forward, and holds the door open. He looks down at the cabbie. "But no one else will die. I think they call that a result."

The smile he gets back is antagonizing. "And then you won't ever understand how those people died. Which result do you care about?"

Logan stands there, agonized. He glances up at the windows to his flat. All he has to do is call out... but...

"If I wanted to understand, what would I do?" Logan's tone is careful, and unsure.

"Ye'd get in the back, and let me take ye for a ride."

"So that you can kill me, too?"

A laugh. "I'm not gonna kill ye, Mr. Holmes. I'm just gonna talk te ye, and then you're gonna kill yourself." The cab driver is sitting at his wheel, drumming his fingers, waiting.

Waiting.

The door that Logan is holding ajar slams shut, and the cab shakes as someone climbs into the back seat.

The driver's smile is visible to Logan in the rearview mirror. It glints like gold, and the driver starts up the car.


	20. Eighteen

Virgil Watson stands at the window, curtain drawn back with one hand, as he watches Logan get into the waiting cab down below, and it drives away.

"Logan just got into a cab. He just drove away in a cab!"

Roman glances at him, pityingly. "I told you, he does that."

But Virgil isn't satisfied with that. Something's wrong, he can feel it. He watches out of the window as the taxi tutters down the street at a nice leisurely pace.

Roman turns to Remy. "He's gone off, again! Wasting our bloody time."

Virgil also has his phone to his ear. "I'm calling the phone now, the victim's. It's ringing through." He says, stepping away from the window, his stomach churning uncomfortably.

They all pause, and listen. Nothing but the clanking of the investigators.

"If it's ringing, then it's not here." Remy says, after a moment.

Virgil hangs up, and crosses to the computer on the desk. "I'll check the location again." He says, and he represses the ' _Update Location'_ button.

"Does it matter? Does any of it?" Roman asks. He steps closer to Lestrade, and lowers his voice. Confidential. "He's just a lunatic, and he'll always let you down. And you're here wasting your time. All of our time."

Remy looks bleakly at him, acknowledging this as the truth.

Virgil is sitting at the computer, hand in his hair. This isn't right. Something is _wrong._ He glances up at the laptop screen. The clock is still spinning, spinning. The location is still updating, updating. Somewhere beyond him, Virgil can hear Remy call out to the rest of the room:

"Okay, everyone, let's pack up. We're done here."

\---

The taxi rounds the corner, winding through the London streets. Logan is doing his best to map their route in his head. He keeps his eyes on the road signs as they pass them. "How did you find me?" He asks.

"Oh, I recognized you, soon as I saw ye chasin' my cab. Logan Holmes. I was warned about you." The taxi driver says. "I've been on your website, too. Brilliant stuff, I loved it."

Logan looks surprised. Really? Logan turns his attention to the man in the front seat momentarily. He's examining the man. He notices a small trace of shaving cream on the man's ear.

_Single._

"Who would warn you about me?" He asks, trying to keep the man talking.

"There's someone out there who noticed you." The driver says, which is annoyingly unhelpful.

Logan's eyes flick over to a photograph of two children, that's clamped to the dashboard. The kids are about the ages of eight and ten, and they are sitting on a black leather couch, laughing. A woman's arm is visible wrapping around their shoulders, but the woman herself appears to be cut out of the picture, assumingly manually, after the printing of it. It's clearly an old photograph, but Logan notes that the frame it's in is fairly new.

_Divorced. Estranged._

"Who?" Logan asks.

The taxi driver just continues to smile. Like he's ever going to say...

"Who would notice _me_?" Logan pushes.

"You're too modest, Mr. Holmes." The man says.

"I promise you, I'm not."

"You've got yourself a fan!" The man says with a laugh. "But, that's all you're going to know... in this lifetime."

\---

The last of the policemen are leaving the flat, packing up their bags, and heading out with their equipment lugged over their shoulders. They're chatting amongst themselves, some discussing their frustration with their lack of progress, some grumbling about how late they ended up staying, some joking around and arranging to get drinks after work. Doors bang shut, and footsteps faint. Only Remy Lestrade loiters. He's clearly frustrated, disappointed.

"Why did he do that? Why did he have to leave?" He asks Virgil, who's now sitting at the desk, chin resting on his hands, his elbows resting on his knees. Virgil's eyes are glazed, and unseeing, even though they're directed at the carpet.

"You know him better than I do."

"I've known him for five years." Remy says. "And no, I don't."

Virgil looks up at that, eyes flitting up to look at the inspector, who's standing by the door, leaning against the wall with one ankle crossed over the other and his arms folded across his chest. The DI, because of his status, doesn't wear a uniform like the rest of the officers. Remy's leather jacket is zipped up, almost covering his police badge that hangs around his neck like a tarnished participation medal. Virgil pops his jaw out a bit, biting lightly on the inside of his cheek. "Why do you put up with him?"

Remy stands up straight, and his hands throw themselves outward to either side of the inspector's torso as he strides to the door, suddenly heated. "Because I'm fucking desperate, that's why!" He pulls open the door to the flat violently, before hesitating. He stands there, facing away from Virgil, who has his eyes on him, for a bit. Eventually, he sighs, and looks back over his shoulder, ready with the truth this time. "Because-- Because Logan Holmes is a great man. And I think that one day, if we're very, very lucky, he might even be a good one."

And with that, he leaves, closing the door behind him, and leaving Virgil alone in the flat. Virgil watches after him for a moment, and hears the sound of the final police car driving away down Baker Street, and then Virgil turns his attention to the rest of Logan's flat. _His_ flat. It's both of theirs now, he supposes. It still hasn't quite hit home with him that he's going to live there. That's not really unfair to expect, though, because Logan made that decision for him, and immediately afterward he'd been reeled into _this_ mess.

He wonders where his supposed flatmate is, anyway. Not that he should particularly care. He hardly knows this man, and he clearly hadn't wanted Virgil coming with him to wherever he's headed. Which is perfectly fine, he's not obligated to take a near stranger anywhere, nor has to tell him where he's off to at any given moment. That's normal. But, even so, Virgil's stomach is uneasy.

Virgil can feel the beginnings of a migraine working its way to the front of his head, and he winces. He stands, trying to ignore how the muscles in his body seem to want to tug him toward the door, and instead heads for the kitchen. On his way, Virgil starts putting the flat back together, tucking books onto shelves and papers back into folders, and dishes back into overhead cupboards, and the beaker of eyeballs back into the microwave.

What Virgil fails to see, though, is that one the desk, the laptop screen shifts from _'Your phone will be located in: 30 secs.'_ which it had been stuck at for some time, to: _'Your phone has been located.'_

The image on screen changes, pixels turning over. In the kitchen beyond, Virgil is stowing things away in the pantry, oblivious.

A map is appearing on screen...

\---

The taxi is slowing to a halt, between two identical dilapidated twin buildings. The buildings are old, and they look a bit like schools, or colleges. But they're run-down, uncared for. They're dark on the inside, matching the late night sky that casts the world in shadow.

The taxi driver springs out, and is quick to round the car, opening it for Logan in a way that, under any other circumstance, might have seemed courteous.

Logan just sits there, looking up at him. His collar of his coat is flipped upward around the back of his neck, the way he likes it, and his glasses are a little spotted from the remnants of the rain that he and Virgil had been running in earlier. "Where are we?" The detective inquires, blankly.

The taxi driver's eyes spark, amused. "You know exactly where we are. You know ev'ry street 'ere in London."

Logan grits his teeth. "Roland-Kerr Further Education College." Logan says, watching as the man before him looks prideful. He isn't disappointed. "But why here?" Logan asks.

"It's open," The driver says, "the cleaners are in. Thing about bein' a cabbie, ye always know a quiet spot for a nice murder. I'm surprised more of us don't branch out."

"And you just walk your victims in? How?"

There's a _ch-chick_ sound that makes the hairs on Logan's neck rise. Calmly, the taxi driver pulls a black gun from his coat pocket, and points it at Logan.

Logan looks at it, trying to look unimpressed. "Dull."

"It gets better than this, don't worry." The cabbie assures him, silver hair receding as his grin widens. He spins the gun in his hand, before tucking it back away. "I don't need this with you, though. 'Cause you'll follow me." The driver then turns, and starts to walk away, heading towards the building on the right.

That leaves Logan sitting alone in the back of the cab. He's being played, and he knows it, and he hates it. But, he just can't resist. He can't resist the way his pulse quickens, and his heart hammering against his ribs, and it feels like it's going to beat right out of his chest, like it yearns to follow the taxi driver. He can't resist the way that he feels so _alive,_ in a situation where he's so likely to die. He can't resist a good chess game, even when he's only left with a pawn and a bishop. Because pawns and bishops can be underestimated, and when played right, against all odds, they can win you the game. Logan's never been good at losing, and with the endgame so close, he can't resist the temptation to play just a few more turns. Because he knows that if he plays his pieces right, it'll be checkmate.

He pushes himself up, and out of the car.

\---

Virgil heads for the front door, the flat much tidier than it had been before. But even with the main area next to spotless, he still feels like he might be sick. Like he's missing something. But that doesn't make sense.

He's probably been in this place for too long. All of the dust has been disturbed, and with some of the discoveries that he'd made while cleaning up, Virgil wouldn't be surprised his nausea is coming from the musty air. He's decided that he should just get out for a bit, get some fresh air, buy some groceries or something. Perhaps go on a walk. He pulls on his hoodie, which lays discarded on the banister outside where he'd left it by the front door, and is about to call out to Patton to tell him that he's leaving, when he realizes that he should probably open the windows before he goes. If he's having a problem with the air in here, it's probably best that he let it air out a bit. He climbs back up the stairs and into the flat. He pushes open a couple of windows, one in the kitchen, and one in the sitting room. He heads over to the desk next, leaning over the surface to try to reach the window pane beyond. As he does, though, his elbow knocks against the open lid of Logan's laptop, sending it falling to the floor.

Virgil swears under his breath, and bends over, to pick it up and to check that the screen hasn't broken. He inspects it, and freezes when he sees that a map is open on screen, a red target symbol blinking at him expectantly.

Like a warning.

The laptop is shoved under his arm, and Virgil's heart leaps to his throat. And in a flash, his footsteps hammer down the staircase.


	21. Nineteen

Logan is led into a dreary wooden classroom, on the top floor of the building. It appears to be some sort of old, unused, science lab room. Long, wooden lab benches stretch all the way across the room, lines with sparse rows of rickety stools. The windows are dark from the sky beyond, and the room is lit by flickering overhead lamps, that swing unsafely from chains that are bolted to the rafters. There's a line of cabinets on one side of the room, likely full of beakers and droppers and scales, along with empty chemical stock basins, and enough blades to please a butcher. But every single cupboard in turn is secured shut with a large rusty padlock.

"Well, what do ye think?" The floorboards creak and groan unhappily under the cab driver's feet. "You like it? Up to you, you're the one who's gonna die here."

"No, I'm not." Logan says, instinctively.

"Mhm, that's what they all say." The driver's tone is teasing and malicious. He moves into the room with a confidence that makes it feel like Logan's trespassing on his domain. The cabbie moves to one of the far lab benches, and pulls two stools to sit opposite each other, like setting up a game of chess. He rounds back, and sits on the side that's closest to the door. He folds his hands in front of him, and without even looking back, says: "Sit down, Mr. Holmes. Let's have us a little chat."

Logan considers the offer for a moment, knowing that he can very well run right back out the way he came with the driver's back turned like this. But he doesn't. Instead, he crosses around to the opposite side of the lab bench, and takes a seat, calmly. He folds his hands neatly on the surface in front of him, mirroring the cabbie. The detective looks around the classroom, as if admiring the architecture.

"Bit of a risk, isn't it?" Logan asks, voice echoing slightly in the large, mostly empty laboratory.

"Hm?" The cabbie peers at him over his slim glasses.

"You took me away under the noses of about a dozen policemen. They're not _that_ stupid. And my landlord will remember you."

A silver eyebrow is quirked, and the driver's expression looks like he finds Logan's statement laughable. "You call that a risk? Nah. _This,"_ He's taken a little glass pill bottle from his pocket, and sets it down on the table between them. It's only about the size of a shot glass, and only holds a singular red and white gel cap pill inside it. "Is a risk." He finishes.

Logan frowns, staring at the bottle in confusion. Not understanding.

"Oh, I like this bit." The cabbie says. "'Cause you don't get it yet, do you? But, you're about to. I just hafta do... this."

He puts something down next to the pill bottle on the lab bench. His hand clears, and he reveals a second, identical bottle, with only one lonely pill revolving slowly on the bottom. Logan's eyes flicker quickly between the bottles, trying to process this. They're the same in every detail.

The taxi driver's tone is condescending, and his crinkle at the corners with entertainment. "Ah, weren't expecting that, were you? You're going to _love_ this."

"Love what?" Logan asks, glancing up from the bottles.

"Logan Holmes, 'ere, in the flesh! Just look at you." The cabbie sounds like he's enjoying himself quite a lot. "Y'know that website of yours, your fan told me about it."

"My _fan_?"

"You are brilliant, ye are. You are a proper genius. _The Science of Deduction._ That's proper thinkin'." The cabbie leans forward, and his breath is rancid. "Now, between you and me, why can't people just think? Doesn't it just drive you mad, that people don't just stop for a second and _think?"_

"Oh, I see. So you're a proper genius too?" Logan quips, and his stool wobbles unsteadily as he leans back a bit.

"Don't look it, do I? Funny little man, driving a cab. But, you'll know better in a minute. Chances are," The man sneers. "It'll be the last thing you'll ever know."

Logan just looks at him, sour. His gaze slowly lowers to the bottles on the table. "Okay, so two bottles. Explain."

"Well, it's simple, really." The man says, adjusting each of the bottles in turn, just so, so that the two are perfectly in line with each other. "There's a good bottle, and there's a bad bottle. Take the pill from the good bottle, and ye live. Take the other, and ye die."

Logan lowers his head to be eye level with the containers. "And the bottles are, of course, identical."

"In. Every. Single. Way." The man antagonizes.

"And you know which is which."

"'Course I know."

"But I don't."

"Wouldn't be a game if ye knew. You're the one who chooses." The cab driver nudges the bottles forward a bit, towards the detective.

"Why should I choose? I've got nothing to go on. What's in it for me?" Logan asks, gears turning in his head like clockwork.

"Ah, ye see, I 'aven't told ye the best bit yet. Whatever bottle you choose, I take the pill in the other one. And then together, we... take our _medicine_."

Logan looks genuinely surprised.

"I won't cheat, it's your choice. I'll take whichever pill you don't." He smiles at him. Demonic, malevolent. "Didn't expect that, did ye, Mr. Holmes?"

Logan stares down at the bottles, and the two of them stare right back. They glisten under the light of the yellowing lamp overhead. They cast reflective shadows across the table, that sway back and forth alongside and in time with the lights. "This is what you did? To all of them? You just gave them a choice?"

The cabbie dips his chin in a sort of nod. "And now, I'm giving it to you. Take a moment. Get yourself together. I want your best game."

"This isn't a game-- it's chance."

"I've played four times, and I'm still alive. It's not chance, Mr. Holmes. It's chess. One move, one survivor. And this..." He lays a finger on the topper of one of the bottles, the one on the left, and slowly slides it towards Logan.

"This is the move."


	22. Twenty

Virgil is sitting in the backseat of yet another cab, with Logan's laptop nestled in his lap. The map is open on it, and there's an internet dongle jammed into one of the side ports. The car is moving at a speed that's bordering on dangerous, and is most definitely illegal, but Virgil had promised to pay the driver extra for the hurry. His gaze alternates between the map and the road, and he has his phone pressed to his ear.

"No, Detective Inspector Lestrade. Please, I need to talk to him, it's _important_ , it's an emergency." He pulls the receiver away from his face, and yells up to the driver. "Left here, _left!"_

\---

Logan and the taxi driver, sitting in the centre of a long silence. Logan is looking between the two pills.

"Are you ready to play, Mr. Holmes?" The man is taunting him now. Luring him in like a rat to a mousetrap.

Logan's exasperated. "Play _what?_ It's a fifty-fifty chance."

"You're not playing the numbers-- you're playing _me._ Did I give you the good pill, or the bad? Is it a bluff, double-bluff, triple?"

"There's still _chance_." Logan snaps.

"Four people, in a row. It's not chance."

"It's luck."

"It's _genius."_ The man says, very high on himself. "I know how people think. I know how people think _I_ think. I can see it all like a map in my head. Everyone's so stupid, even you."

Logan almost visibly twitches at that.

"Or, maybe God just loves me." The man sneers.

"Either way," Logan smirks. "You're wasted as a cabbie."

\---

Virgil's cab is now parked, when he launches himself out of the taxi, he sees that it's pulled in behind another, that is powered off and seems to have been here a good enough while.

Logan.

The doctor is scrambling, racing around to the window to pay. As he does so, he looks frantically between the two twin buildings. Which one, _which one??_

\---

"You risked your life four times, just to kill strangers?" Logan asks. "Why?"

The cabbie is looking annoyed now. "Time to play." His tone is firmer, and harsher than before, when it had sounded almost amused.

"Oh, but I am playing." Logan's smirk deepens. "This is just my turn." He points to the side of the taxi driver's face. "There's shaving foam behind your ear, and no one's pointed it out to you. There are traces of where it's happened before, so clearly you live alone, no one to tell you it's there."

Logan closes his eyes, to visualize the photograph that he'd seen on the dashboard of his captor's car.

"But, you have a photograph of children. A woman, presumably the children's mother, has been cut out of the picture. If she'd died, she would still be in it. The photo is old, but the frame is new; you think of your children, but don't get to see them. Estranged father, she took the kids, but you still love them, and it still hurts."

The taxi driver is on the back foot now, nailed.

"Oh, but there's more!" Logan flaunts, he's into it now. "Your clothes are freshly laundered, but everything that you're wearing is at least three years old; keeping up appearances, but not planning ahead. And here you are, on a kamikaze murder spree, so what's that about, then?" Logan looks the driver up and down. "Three years ago, is that when they told you?"

"Told me what?"

_Dying._

"The doctors. That you're a dead man walking."

The taxi driver looks away, biting his tongue, and taking a moment to recover. His wrinkled hands shake just a hair. His gaze closes in on Logan, his jaw set. "So are you."

"You don't have long, am I right?" Logan stares back, just as intently, not backing down.

The taxi driver suddenly smiles, affable. He taps his head with one finger twice. "Aneurysm, right in 'ere. Any breath could be my last."

"And because you're dying, to decided to murder four people."

The cabbie shakes that same finger in Logan's face agonizingly slowly, as if saying _ah, ah, ah._ "I've _outlived_ four people. That's the most fun ye can have, with an aneurysm."

He taps the lid of the bottle in front of the detective. "Make that five."

\---

Virgil is racing up flight after flight of stairs, and is now pounding down another corridor, out of breath, but still managing to shout on wrecked vocal chords.

"Logan!" He cries out. " _Logan!"_

He's kicking open doors, looking in every room.

\---

"No. No, that isn't it. There has to be something else. You haven't killed four people just because you're bitter. Bitterness is a paralytic." Logan drums his fingers on the desk, thoughtfully. " _Love,_ on the other hand, is a much more vicious motivator. Somehow, this is about your children."

The cabbie sits back on his stool, looking somehow, amidst everything else, impressed. "Oh, you _are_ good, aren't you?"

"But how?" Logan's watching him carefully, trying to fit the pieces together.

"When I die, they won't get much, my kids. Not a lot of money in driving cabs." The man explains, tugging his brown coat a bit tighter around himself.

"Or serial killing." Logan says.

"You'd be surprised."

"Surprise me." The detective challenges.

The taxi driver grins, and leans forward, conspiratorial. "I've got a sponsor."

"You have a _what?"_

"For every life I take, money goes to my kids. The more I kill, the better off they'll be. Ye see? Nicer than ye think."

Logan shakes his head. "Who would sponsor a serial killer?"

"Who'd be a fan of Logan Holmes?" The driver shoots back.

Logan leans forward. Now they're getting somewhere. He's fascinated.

"You're not the only one who enjoys a good murder, Mr. Holmes. There's someone else out there," The driver looks out of one of the windows that surround them on all sides. One set looks out to the building opposite, but the others, they look out over the roofs of London. "Someone just like you. Except you're just a man, and they're so much more."

"Who?" Logan demands, rocked.

The cabbie just smiles sickly.

"What do you mean, more? Who is it? Tell me!" Logan pushes himself so he's half out of his seat, leaning across the table threateningly.

"There's a name that no one says, and I'm not gonna say it either." The man says, pushing Logan back into his seat with one hand. "Now, enough chatter. Time to choose."

Logan wants to push further, but he doesn't. He sinks back into his seat, and turns his attention back to the bottles that sit in front of him and the man, one apiece. His heartbeat spikes, and he knows this is it. The cabbie is right. The game's been played long enough. It's time to make a choice. It's time to either win it all, or lose everything.

\---

Virgil's bolting down a new hallway, slamming doors open as he goes, his footsteps reverbing in his ears.

"Logan!" He gasps.

The throws open yet another door. _Empty._

\---

"What if I don't take either?" Logan asks. "I could, theoretically, just get up and walk out of here right now."

The taxi driver sighs, and pulls out his gun lazily. He points it squarely at Logan's forehead. "You can take a fifty-fifty chance, or I can shoot ye in the head. Funnily enough, no one's ever gone for that option."

Logan looks between the man and the gun coldly for a moment. Then he just smiles, and folds his arms across his chest, coat folding to accommodate.

"I'll have the gun, please."

The man cocks the gun, and turns off the safety. "Are you sure?"

"Definitely. The gun."

"Don't want to phone a friend?"

Logan's jaw is set. "The gun." His grits out.

The cabbie levels the gun, and pulls the trigger.

There's a fizzle and a click, and a little light flame pops out at the end of the barrel, right where the bullet should've emerged.

A shit-eating grin passes over Logan's face, but there's a hint of relief behind his eyes. "I know a real gun when I see one."

"None of the others."

"Clearly." He drums his hands on the table, before standing up, stool screeching as it's pushed away. "Well, this has been most interesting. I look forward to your court case." He heads for the door.

"Before you go," The cabbie stops him. "Did you figure it out? Which one's the good bottle?"

"Of course." Logan almost rolls his eyes. "Child's play."

"Which one, then?" The man challenges. "Which would you have taken? Just so I know if I could have beaten you."

Logan is looking narrowly at him. Contemptuous, but so competitive.

"Come on, play the game!"

Logan slowly crosses back over to the lab bench. He points to the bottle in front of the cab driver.

"Oh, _interesting_!" The driver draws the word out like it's toffee in his mouth. He reaches across the surface, for the bottle that he's placed in front of where Logan was sitting. He uncaps it, and dumps the only remaining pill into his hand.

Logan sits again, this time, beside the cabbie. He reaches for the remaining bottle, and he slowly turns it over in his hand. Like he's almost tempted.

"Really, what do you think?" The man urges. "Can you beat me? Are you clever enough? Are you _really_ sure? Enough to bet your life on it?"

Logan gives him a look. Of _course_ he can beat him. Surely he isn't wrong. He can't be.

Right?

Logan looks at the bottle. He slowly uncaps it, and empties its singular contents into the palm of his waiting hand. The pill almost glitters in the dim, dank lighting. He has the temptation. A _real temptation..._

\---

Virgil has been running so fast for so long that he feels dizzy. He bangs another door open. Then another. Then another.

This time, though, he stops dead still in the doorway.

He can see Logan sitting there, staring at something small, like a tablet, that's pinched between two fingers. Another man, who's smiling sadistically, is watching the detective closely.

He can see Logan and this stranger through the window opposite him, and across the space between the two buildings, into the classroom where they're sitting. Virgil's standing, staring-- _he's in the_ _wrong building._

Virgil's panic is insurmountable, guilt and helplessness whirling into the sinking feeling in his stomach as his heart pounds upwards into this throat.

" _Logan!!_ "

\---

Logan and the driver sit, still in confrontation.

"Come on then, Mr. Holmes. Let's play, for real."

Logan remains silent, still staring at the pill. He feels a bit unwell, looking at it, yet he can't seem to tear his eyes away.

"You get so bored, I know you do. A man like you, so _clever_. But what's the point in being clever if you never _prove_ it?" The cabbie's voice is egging, engaging, encouraging.

Holmes lifts the pill up to the light, briskly and professionally. Not like he's succumbing, but to appear like he's looking for something, like he's examining it.

The man laughs. "Come now, ye can't _see_ the poison."

Logan lets his hand fall, and the two men stare each other down, challenging. Without so much as blinking, Logan begins to raise his hand up towards his mouth, and the driver does the same, expression unreadable.

\---

Virgil watches on, horrified. Why's he doing that??

Virgil's running again, this time toward the window. He slams against it, and pounds on it ruthlessly, staring across the street with tears of terror at his eyes.

" _LOGAN!!"_


	23. Twenty-One

Logan's hand raises towards his mouth, hand trembling a bit now. Closer, closer. The pill ever closer to his mouth. He parts his lips, and the man facing him does the same.

The pill presses to his lips--

And the window explodes. There's a hail of shattering glass, and Logan's knocked backwards off of his stool, dropping the pill amongst the shards. The detective staggers, and barely catches himself on the next lab bench behind him.

The sound of raining glass is deafening, and Logan cries out when a gagged piece slashes his cheek as it flies past him. He spots the cabbie, who's lying on his back, covered in little clear sharp shards of the window. The driver is clutching at his chest, which is spurting blood, and he's choking. His hands are flailing to grab at something, anything, but he's only met with a fistful of glass. The man screams.

He's sputtering, and Logan is trying to will his body to move. He rushes over-- to leap past the driver, who's gasping his terrible last on the floor. Great, ragged whoops of breath. Logan drops to his knees amongst the glass, and pulls up the two pills that are now scattered across the floor. He examines them, frantically. There's no way to tell them apart.

He rounds on the taxi driver, who's spluttering and seizing on the floor. "Was I right? I was, wasn't I? Come on! Did I get it?"

But the driver just looks up at him, and there's the tiniest hint of a smile with a lot of effort. He's never going to tell.

Logan's furious, and he throws the pills to the floor. He kicks the base of one of the lab benches a few times, but then stalls. He gets his anger under control, and then walks to stand over the dying man again, this time cold. "Okay. Then tell me-- your sponsor, who is it?"

The driver, such agony, but he shakes his head all the same.

"Come on, I want a name!"

"...n-no..."

Logan, calmly and coldly, places a foot on the abdomen of the driver, near his wound. "You may be dying, but there's still time to hurt you. Give me a name."

The taxi driver is shaking his head. No, _no._

Logan presses down with his shoe, and the man yelps out in pain.

"Give me a _name_!"

The name is ripped from the man. A terrible, sky-splitting below:

_"Moriarty!!"_

And the man stills.

Logan stares down at him, the name ringing through his head like the tolls of a bell.

_Moriarty,_

_Moriarty,_

_Moriarty._

He looks around, now. He knows that the murderer had been shot by a bullet through the window. The detective races to the broken window, looking out, across to the other schoolhouse. But, there's no visible gunman in the darkened building. It doesn't help that Logan notices that one of his lenses in his glasses is now heavily cracked, splitting his vision a bit in one eye.

_Moriarty,_

_Moriarty,_

_Moriarty._

Who did that? Who shot?

_Moriarty,_

_Moriarty,_

_Moriarty._

Far across the gap between the two twin buildings, in a blackened classroom with an open window, that Logan can't see, Virgil's gun clatters to the floor.


	24. Twenty-Two

There's blazing flashing lights, long strands of police tape, and a swarm of emergency vehicles. The parking lot of the twin buildings is flooded with officers and healthcare workers, buzzing in and out of both buildings with evidence bags and, for one pair, a stretcher and a white sheet. There's order in the chaos, though, with captains shouting orders to their rookies, and a plan of action to all of the bustling about. 

But chaos is still chaos.

It all seems like a blur to Logan, who's sitting perched on the back ledge of an ambulance, with gauze and bandaging on his cheek, and his cracked glasses slipping down his nose, There's a navy weighted blanket around his shoulders.

"Why do I have this blanket? They keep putting this blanket on me."

"It's for shock." Remy Lestrade says, who's standing next to him, with a to-go coffee in hand.

"I'm not in shock!" Logan protests.

"Yeah, but some of the guys want to take photographs." Remy quips, holding his mug out, offering Logan a sip of his drink.

Logan shoots him a look, and takes the coffee. He takes a long sip, enjoying the warmth of the cup in his cold hands. He hands the cup back to the DI, and looks up at the building, where he knows they're now retrieving the cabbie's body. "So, the shooter, no sign of him?" He asks, thoughtfully.

Remy shakes his head. "Cleared off by the time we got here. A serial killer would've had enemies, I suppose. One of them could've followed him here. But, the shooter didn't leave anything behind. We've got nothing to go on."

Logan turns to him. "Well, I wouldn't say _that..._ "

Remy sighs, sets down his coffee on the ledge beside Logan, and pulls out a notebook wearily. Here we go again. "Alright, babes, hit me with it."

"Well..." Logan's smirk is persistent and visible a mile away in the darkness. "The bullet that they dug out of the wall was from a handgun. A kill shot over that distance, from that kind of weapon, that's a crack shot you're looking for. But not just a marksman, a fighter, his hand couldn't have shaken at all, so clearly he's acclimatised to violence." He says, eyes flickering out to passerbyers as he thinks, trying to pull out features in each of them. "He didn't fire until I was in immediate danger, though. So, strong moral principles. You're looking for a man probably with a history of military service and nerves of..."

He drifts off, as his eyes land on someone in particular, who's standing across on the other side of the roped off, limited access, cordoned area, who's surrounded by flashing red and blue lights and hurrying policemen. Dr. Virgil Watson. He's just standing there, watching quietly. Reserved. Military.

Oh my god.

"Actually, you know what-- ignore me." Logan says, eyes still fixated on the veteran.

"Huh?" Remy's pen falters.

"Ignore all that. It's the, um, shock. The shock's talking." Logan stands.

"Wait, hun, where are you going?" Remy asks, following his gaze.

"Just need to... discuss the rent. Virgil's moving in, you know." He's already heading off towards the man in question.

"But I've still got questions for you!"

"What, _now?"_ Logan turns around, continuing to take strides backwards. "I'm in shock. Look, I've got a blanket." Logan waves one end in Remy's direction for emphasis.

"Holmes--"

"I _did_ just catch a serial killer for you, more or less. Can't this wait?" Logan is now full feet away from the DI.

Lestrade sighs. "...Fine. We'll pull you in tomorrow. Now go home, get lost."

And Logan's off. Remy watches him go for a moment, before he smiles, and turns away.

\---

"Hello."

Virgil blinks. He must've zoned out. He looks around for the source of the word, eyes landing on Logan, who's more than a bit dishevelled from the explosion, and is stepping up beside him to join him, tossing a crumpled blanket into the popped trunk of a nearby police car.

"Oh, hi." Virgil says, looking up at the taller man. "Sergeant Anderson was telling me about what happened. The two pills and everything? Really awful." He says, looking out back at the busy parking lot.

The two stand in silence for a moment, arms barely touching. They stand still, like the calm in the centre of the storm of policemen. They watch the workers for a bit, who are coming up from the building with large disposal bins labelled _"Broken Glass",_ along with various sized evidence bags. They stay like that for a moment, before Logan leans down a bit, voice quiet, just between the two of them. "Good shot."

Virgil clears his throat forcefully, and nods. "Yeah, must've been. Through both of those windows?"

"Well, you'd know." Logan just eyes him. Virgil gives a little smile of acknowledgement.

"We'll need to get the powder burns off of your fingers." Logan notes, lifting Virgil's hand by the wrist so that he can see it. "I don't suppose that you'll serve time for this, but let's avoid the court case." His hand slides up, to gently grip Virgil's hand, still up in view. "Are you alright?"

"I-I, yeah. I'm fine." Virgil's eyes search Logan's, confused at his sudden concern.

"You just killed a man." Logan says, letting go of his hand.

Virgil is quick to shove it into his sweater pocket. "Yeah, true. But, he wasn't a very nice man."

"No, no he wasn't, really, was he?"

"And a damn _awful_ cabbie at that." Virgil adds.

Logan gives a little laugh. "Yeah, that's true. A very bad cabbie. You should've seen the route we took to get here."

They look at each other, and then they're both giggling. Giggling like schoolboys.

"S-Stop it," Virgil hisses. "We can't be laughing, it's a fucking crime scene, stop."

Logan mocks offense. "Don't blame me! You shot him!"

"Shhhhhh!" Virgil shoves into Logan with his shoulder. "You could keep your voice down a bit."

They let their laughter die slowly, and Virgil tugs his sweater tighter around himself. He looks out into the sea of passerbyers, before turning to Logan, more serious now. "You were going to take that pill, weren't you?"

"No I wasn't." Logan replies quickly. "I was playing for time. I knew you'd show up."

"What? No you didn't." Virgil counters. "That's how you entertain yourself, isn't it? Risking your life to prove you're smart."

"And why would I do that?" Logan asks, eyebrows quirking.

Virgil rolls his eyes, the corners of his mouth teasing upwards. "Because you're an idiot."

Logan's head whips towards Virgil, looks at him for a moment, affronted.

But then, he smiles. And if it begins anywhere, it begins here, the two best friends ever.


	25. Twenty-Three

Logan and Virgil watch each other for a moment, stupid grins on both of their faces. A rather inappropriate image considering that they're both standing smack dab in the middle of a crime scene. But neither of them seem to care.

"Dinner?" Logan asks, casually.

"Starving." Virgil nods.

Logan begins to lead the way. They duck out underneath the caution tape, and the detective is rambling on. "There's a good Chinese place at the end of Baker Street. It's open 'til two. You can always tell a good Chinese food place by the bottom third of the door handle--"

But Virgil isn't listening, he's seen something ahead.

Parked outside the college gates is a long, sleek, black limousine. Standing outside of it, cast in an eerie silver light from the moon, which is quickly approaching its full height in the sky now, is a man, staring at them. He bears a smile not unlike a snake's who's just swallowed a mouse whole. He's dressed head to toe in stark black clothing, topped off with a hat, that doesn't hide the jagged scar over one of his eyes. Virgil freezes.

"Logan, that's him. The guy I was telling you about."

Logan spots him immediately, and his eyes narrow into slits. "I know _exactly_ who that is." He starts toward the man, with Virgil at his heels.

The other man approaches them, and he and Logan meet in the gateway like gunfighters, about to have a good old fashioned stand off.

"So..." The man starts, a little too off-hand. "Another case cracked. How very spirited of you. Though that's never really your motivation, is it?"

"What are you doing here, snake?" Logan demands, clearly disgusted.

"As ever... I'm concerned about you." He drawls.

"Yes. I've been hearing about your..." Logan glances at Virgil. "...concern."

The man shakes his head, and tuts with shame. "Always so _aggressive_ , Logan. Does it never occur to you and we may be on the same side?" He scolds.

"Oddly enough, no." Logan's tone is just as condescending, hatred and annoyance seeping into it like bleach.

"We have more in common than you believe." The man says, crossing his arms slowly across his chest. "This petty feud between us, it's simply childish, as your new friend put so eloquently earlier."

Virgil tenses up at being called upon, but it seems like neither of the two men in front of him remember that he is actually there at all. They're both pretty absorbed into their stand-off, which looks more like a staring contest.

"People will suffer." The man continues. "And you know how it's always upset dear old Mum."

Wait, what?

"It wasn't _me_ who upset her, Janus--" Logan snaps.

"Wait, wait, wait just a second." Virgil interrupts, hands shooting out, one toward each of the boys, like he's holding them at bay like wild beasts. "No, sorry, wait-- _Mum?_ Who's Mum? _"_

"Mother." Logan says, not daring to look away from the other man. " _Our_ mother. This is my brother, Janus." He looks the other up and down. "Are you putting on weight?"

" _Losing_ it, actually." The man, Janus, retorts.

"He's your _brother??"_

"Of course he's my brother." Logan says.

Virgil is, once again, a step behind. "He's not..."

"Not what?" Logan glances over at him.

Virgil fumbles, embarrassed. "I dunno. Some kind of... criminal mastermind."

Logan shrugs. "Close enough."

"Oh, for goodness sake!" Janus's hands fly into the air. "I occupy a minor post in the British Government--"

"Correction, he _is_ the British Government." Logan cuts in. "That is, when he's not too busy being the British Secret Service, or the CIA on a freelance basis." He streaks past his brother, and starts walking away, fuming. "Good evening, Janus-- try not to start a war before I get home, will you? You know what that does to the traffic."

Virgil and Janus watch Logan storm off. The former takes a deep breath, and steps forward to stand beside the other. He shoves his hands into his pockets, feeling a little out of place. "So, when you said you're concerned about him..." Virgil says. "You actually _are._ "

"Of course, yes." Janus says with a nod, watching as his brother crosses under the light of a street lamp about half a yard away.

"It actually _is_ a childish feud, then?"

"Oh, he's always been so resentful. You can imagine the Christmas dinners."

The two share an awkward laugh, which feels foreign to Virgil, knowing that he's laughing alongside a man who kidnapped him only a few hours ago. Logan, who's halfway down the block at this point, stops, and calls for Virgil to hurry up.

"I, well, I should go. Otherwise he might just leave without me again." Virgil says.

"I doubt that." Janus says, knowingly.

"Okay, well, goodnight." Virgil extends out a hand, which Janus takes firmly.

"Goodnight, doctor."

Virgil heads away into the night, running a bit to catch up with Logan. Janus watches after them, thoughtful.

\---

Virgil is a little breathless as he falls in stride with Logan. "So, dinner. Chinese, then?"

Logan nods, a grin playing at his features. "I can always predict the fortune cookies."

"No, you can't."

"I _nearly_ can." Logan retorts.

The two walk under two more street lamps in silence, heading for the main road. The rain has long since stopped, but the memory of it still remains. The water has settled onto the asphalt underfoot, and it makes damp _splish, splosh_ noises with each and every one of their steps. Logan looks around the mostly empty street, taking notice of the darkened houses that are few and far between. Then, he turns his attention to his new flatmate, maybe even friend, whose eyes are on the pavement, taking solace in his own thoughts. Logan looks down to Virgil legs, thoughtfully. "You did get shot, though?"

"Hm?" Virgil blinks out of whatever he's thinking about, and turns to Logan. "I'm sorry?" He asks, not understanding.

"In Afghanistan." Logan says. "There was an actual wound?"

"Oh, yeah." Virgil says, kicking at a stone as they walk. "In the shoulder."

"The shoulder, not the leg?" Logan asks, trying to think of how else Virgil could've been inflicted with a psychosomatic limp. "Hm, I thought so."

"No you didn't."

"The left one."

"...Lucky guess."

"I _never_ guess."

"Yeah, you do!" Virgil shoves Logan's arm, playfully. Virgil looks up, seeing that Logan is still smiling. He hadn't seen him smile hardly to this extent before. "What are you so happy about?"

"Moriarty." Logan says, pushing up his glasses. He notes that he'll have to get that cracked lens replaced sooner than later, because he really can't see that well out of it.

Virgil frowns, confused. "What's Moriarty?"

Logan's grin widens. "I have absolutely no idea."

\---

Janus Holmes stands at the gates to Roland-Kerr Further Education College, watching the interaction of the two boys until they turn around the corner and onto the main road. Out of sight. He's expression is inquisitive, but not apprehensive, as he watches them go.

"Sir?"

Behind him, the chauffeur, dressed head to toe in his business suit, is holding open the back door to the limousine for him. Waiting for him.

"He's interesting, that soldier." Janus says, still watching the now vacant road. "He could be the making of my brother. Or, he could make him worse than ever." His tone is pensive. "Either way, we better up their surveillance status. Grade three active."

The chauffeur fumbles for his phone, ready to send a memo to head-office. "I'm sorry, sir. Who's status?"

"Logan Holmes and Dr. Virgil Watson."

With that, Janus turns away from the street, and gets into the car. The chauffeur presses send on his message, before tucking his phone away, closing the door behind his boss, and moving around to the front seat. The engine revs up, and the slick limo pulls away stealthily from the still blazing crime scene, and away into the night.


	26. Closing Words

**An Update on "A Study in Scarlet":** On May 3rd, six years ago, a cab driver by the name of Charles Donovan was condemned with the murder of Jeffrey Patterson, James Almore, Elizabeth Davenport, Jennifer Wilson, and the attempted murder of Logan Holmes by the Police Department of London. He was not given a prison sentence, as he unfortunately was found dead at the site of his final attempt at murder.

As of now, the investigation into Case [omitted] regarding Holmes and Watson, is ongoing, and the case is regarded as open and unsolved.

If anyone who reads this message knows anything about the whereabouts of Logan T. Holmes and Virgil A. Watson, you are asked to step forward, and report your knowledge to authorities. Please reference the appendix attached to the back of this recount for a detailed contact list, on how to reach myself, and my colleagues. If you don't have any relevant information at this time, and want to help with this investigation, and the finding of these two men, we ask that you instead spread the word. You may share this case with others, in hopes that perhaps they have information that we are, at this point, unaware of.

For any further questions, please contact [omitted], and they will reach out to you as soon as possible.

The next instalment in this series of case studies will be shared at a time that is, at this point, unknown. The report is still in the works, being researched, written, and eventually edited before the complete version will be accessible to anyone beyond myself, and the team working on this project. However, be aware that this will not be the only instalment in this project, and we will announce the publish of the following works once they are made public.

The records and sources for this project are also listed in the appendix, and are being protected by the London Police Department. Unfortunately, they are not accessible to the public. However, please rest assured that this documentation was well researched, and several profilers and experts in Case [omitted] have said that this recount of events that is enclosed in this book is perhaps, the closest to the truth that we are, at this point, likely to ever receive.

For now, you are welcome to discuss your thoughts on this case with others, while we await the next instalment together.

It's been a pleasure getting to work on this study. Thank you for reading this far. On behalf of those who worked on this book, I hope that you are well. Thank you for your engagement and dedication to this case.

All the best,   
[omitted]


End file.
